While on our trip to the Amami Islands in the south of Japan, we came across all sorts of odd plantlife. Well, odd to us, that is. This orange pod thing came in all shapes and sizes, and looked like some kind of aloe-like plant:

In looking it up now, I see that it's not an aloe-like plant, but that is aloe, just not the non-flowering Aloe vera I was used to seeing occasionally in pots while growing up.

This next grassy-type-puffy thing was a weed found pretty much everywhere...

Beside the road at one point we came across some [...]

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For dinner this evening, Fumie prepared udon – thick noodles – which reminded me of our trip last month to Takamatsu (Kagawa Prefecture, Japan). That area is known for both its udon production and consumption, with something like a bazillion times more udon shops per capita than Tokyo has McDonald's and Starbucks combined.

We got a recommendation from a local for a good shop, and were not disappointed, as we could watch the noodles being made from scratch.

The process starts out with the chef kneading wheat flour, salt, and water into a big ball, and letting it sit for [...]

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I've got a cold (yuck), so I'm dipping into my archive of "blog about someday" pics for some low-hanging easy-to-post fruit.

This lock was on the door of a bell tower deep in the mountains on the rear grounds of the Nanzen Temple (Kyoto, Japan). It took it last summer while walking around with friends KFC and Verena while they were in town. It was the same trip where Anthony inspected a butterfly.

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Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 31mm — 1/60 sec, f/2.8, ISO 800 — full exif Ninja Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — 1/25 sec, f/2.8, ISO 800 — full exif “I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you” Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 50mm — […]
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As I mentioned on my Amami Islands post, it was really really really windy for the first few days of our New-Year's visit to Amami Island (奄美大島) in the East China Sea in the far south of Japan. The airport is near the Kasari-cho area (the north-east part of the island) where Fumie's grandmother lived until a teenager, and in exploring that area after we arrived, we found ourselves at a deserted lighthouse at the most northern tip of the island.

I don't suppose that the picture above really shows the whipping wind very well, but it was truly impressive. [...]

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