Today on a ride from Kyoto to Osaka Castle with Paul Barr, early on the trip while still in Kyoto we came across some cherry blossoms that had apparently gotten confused by the cold spell in October followed by a warm spell earlier this month... they seem to be blooming five months early!

Some varieties of cherry do normally bloom in November, such as we've over the years here, here, and here, but their branches are sparsely populated with blossoms. Today's were full:

今日の出会った桜は十月桜ではないだと思いますが、どんな種類のは分からない。実は、梅や桃ではかも知れません。

Whatever they were, they were pretty and out of place.

I made a short video of [...]

I've been meaning to write about a nice little solo ride I had two weeks ago, to the Ochiba Jinja shrine. It's the same place that I wrote about in "Great Day in Kyoto’s Colorful Northern Mountains", which actually happened the next day.

The course for this day's solo ride can be seen on my cycling heatmap.

The fall colors had been pretty subdued, but with my health back after six weeks of colds/allergy/something, everything looked beautiful to me.

The small sign pointed up what looked like a driveway, but turned out to be an old logging road. I probably [...]

I've ridden my bike to Osaka three times so far. The first time was this ride in June; I'm using photos from that ride on today's post.

The second time was last month with a non-Cycling friend, and the third was yesterday, by myself.

A drunk man in the train knocked Anthony's phone to the ground, smashing its screen. Anthony being a kid, and the drunk man being a drunk man, Anthony felt he could do nothing but suck it up. Part of sucking it up means visiting the closest Apple Store to have the screen replaced, so I took [...]

On a visit to the Enkoji Temple in northeast Kyoto yesterday, this couple in traditional kimono kindly posed for a wigglegram:

Anyone wearing kimono in these settings is certainly noticed by the camera, and it turns out that my camera had noticed her earlier, lost in thought in the main garden-viewing room...

This was part of Day 2 of Paul Barr's visit to Kyoto, which I'll write more about later. Day 1 was a visit to the Tenjuan Temple.

Continued here and here (sort of)

Paul Barr, in town this week, and I made a visit yesterday to the Tenjuan Temple (天授庵) within the Nanzen Temple complex. It was my second visit inside, my first visit here having been three years ago. Earlier this year, though, I did feature the main gate of this shrine covered in snow.

Anyway, the fall colors this year in Kyoto seem a bit subdued, but it wasn't crowded yesterday and overall was really pleasant. We ended up sitting and enjoying more than taking photos.

友達ポールさんは来日して、一緒に天授庵行って、もみじを撮影しました。今年は色は薄い方ですが、雰囲気はなかなか良かった。よく落ち着いて、リラックス出来ました。

With the dark shadows under the overhang, and bright sunlight in the background, the [...]