As I've mentioned lately, I've taken to heading up to Shogunzuka to try to catch the sunset in hopes of getting lucky and being able to photograph one that's spectacular. During the five-minute drive home one day recently, I noticed this view...

That big building in the background looks totally decrepit, and despite having driving by it a bazillion times, I'd not noticed it until now. I find these kinds of places somewhat fascinating, and along the same lines, posted Abandoned House Returning To Nature last month, and about the razing of an Old House of Bamboo and Mud last [...]

I took the shot above while exploring a small neighborhood near my place this morning. I'll have plenty of interesting things to share from this morning's adventure, but for today, just the picture above (did you see the tiny, curious dog?) and a few uninteresting things...

I posted the other day about the Shinto evergreen/tangerine display that people adorn their cars with during the New Year season. Those displays are also often found above entrances to homes, and with the post from the other day fresh in my mind, I took the opportunity to snap a few pictures of these [...]

One of the rooms at the "Otsu Yumekko" (a nearby playland we visited in February) is set aside for playing with Kapla planks. They have thousands of them, and the space is large, so it was like a mini Dubai with all the various construction going on...

Each big box holds 1,000 pieces, and runs about 400 bucks! They had plenty.

One guy was making a tall tower with a little boy...

Knowing that a kid that young severely shortens the life span of anything built with balance, I kept one eye on them prepared to catch the inevitable collapse.

For reasons I've yet to fully investigate, it's common around this time of year to see vehicles in Japan adorned with some kind of display incorporating twine, an evergreen twig, white strips of paper, and sometimes a tangerine. Just based on what else I know of Japan, I'm sure it's related to Shinto, because the white strips of paper are usually the zigzag streamers used in Shinto rituals. It's probably mostly just a non-religious custom now, having evolved from a religious purification ritual of some sort. That's my guess.

Anyway, the picture above is of an old truck on Kakeroma-jima [...]

In the Kyoto Winter Preview I posted the other day – about an uncommon snowfall in Kyoto last winter – the story left off with us arriving at the Heian Shrine....

Normally you can go up and through the big gate (such as done by these cute kids in kimono and these demons and this family), but this day it was roped off with "beware of falling snow" signs, as if there was actually enough snow to accumulate on the roof to a dangerous level. It seems sort of silly to me, but in any case, you can still enter [...]