Picking up from part 1 and part 2 about my trip to the Housen-in Temple (宝泉院) in the Ohara mountain district of Kyoto last fall, we moved from the temple and its maple/moss garden, to a separate rock garden...

The weather alternated between light rain and brilliant sun... the gloominess seen above was suddenly replaced by intense sun, which lit up the moss and leaves near this gnarled (overly pruned) bush....

The tsukubai (water basin for ritual purification) is a particular focus point in this garden of many focus points...

It's a bit too much for my taste when viewed [...]

Anthony is a strong swimmer.

According to my blog, he could play in the water by himself four years ago (and also here).

Still, as seen in "Little Fish", as recent as two years ago that level of skill was only enough to get him to "level 8" at the swimming school where he's taken lessons for years; new students who have never been in the water start at "13", going up to expert swimmers at "1".

He's really progressed quickly of late; now he's a the "special" level beyond "1". This rapid advance is likely because for the last [...]

Picking up from "First Visit to Kyoto’s Housen-in Temple" the other day, where I ended with having tea and sweets in the garden-viewing room, here are some more shots of that room and the area.

The back of the room had some nice paintings in the alcoves...

In the shot above, Paul is facing the window seen in the opening shot, shooting the detail of the translucent opening above it. It's covered with thick Japanese paper, so he probably got a shot like this:

The full window looked like it should be very photogenic, but despite spending considerable effort on [...]

During our recent trip to The States to visit my folks, 10-year-old Anthony and I stopped by a LEGO store that had a "Pick-a-Brick" wall.

With "Pick a Brick", you pay by the bucket, so the goal is to engineer as much stuff to fit as possible...

For example, some large white wall pieces had hollow space when stacked, so we worked on filling that space as much as possible...

It was a fun challenge, perhaps more fun for me than for Anthony.

When we got home to Japan, he opened up his two buckets and we counted how much [...]

Dipping back into my largely-untapped archive from November's many fall-foliage outings, here are some photos from a trip to the Kyoto mountain-suburb of Ohara, where we (Damien Douxchamps, Paul Barr, and I) visited some of the smaller temples surrounding the justly-famous Sanzen-in temple (三千院), which has been on my blog many times since my first visit four years ago, including the bazillion offering statues and one of my all-time favorite photos, "Serenity".

But on this trip a few months ago, we avoided the oppressive crowds at Sanzen-in, instead letting Damien introduce us to the hidden-gem lesser temples dotting its perimeter.