Yodobashi Camera, a small chain of large camera/electronics stores, opened a new branch in Kyoto on Friday. They have about 20 branches around Japan now, with the main store in Tokyo's Shinjuku said to be the largest camera store in Japan. They have a branch in Osaka 45 minutes away by train (which I mentioned five years ago in an early post on my blog), but mentally it feels much further away, so it's wonderful for me that they have a branch in Kyoto. It's in the building immediately north of Kyoto Tower, which itself is just north of Kyoto [...]
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Picking up from yesterday's "KidZania Visit #3, Part 1" about last Friday's visit to KidZania, Anthony and Gen were waiting to start their stint as dentists....

The worker had talked to them a bit, then they did a quick paper-rock-scissors competition to decide something, and the photo above was when Anthony apparently won. From what happened later, I think it was to decide who would be the doctor, and who would be the assistant.

Since Anthony and Gen were a pair, the staff let the little girl perform a procedure by herself while Anthony and Gen waited, so they could [...]

Anthony's school had a day off last Friday, so I took the opportunity of him having a free school day to bring him to his third visit to KidZania (the amazing kid place that I introduced in this post). Anthony's friend Gen joined us, for his second visit.

I had Gen decide which would be the first event, and after considerate consultation with Anthony, flight training won out over what was apparently a close contest with being a police officer. Anthony was excited by both options, though both had done flight training before: Anthony's prior flight-training experience.

This little girl [...]

I made the mistake of having something shipped from The States to myself in Japan via Federal Express. FedEx has very un-Japanese (and hence horrible) service in Japan. My package cleared Japanese customs at about noon on Friday, and had I shipped with any other carrier I would have the package in my hands on Saturday. Yet here it is two days later and FedEx's tracking hasn't even updated. I called FedEx Japan, and they're closed!. "Call Back Monday".

I paid through the nose for the fastest shipment possible, only to find that I chose a lazy, clueless company. Sigh.

Two weeks ago I visited an ikebana (flower arranging) exhibition and posted some pictures of arrangements done by kids (aged about three to eight). Today I'll follow up with shots of a few of the many (100+?) other arrangements.

I wrote in that post two weeks ago the problems with photography at the event.... the backgrounds, the lighting, the positioning... all were elements that I couldn't control, and all were horrible from a photography point of view.

I'm about as uncultured a clod as you'll find, but even I could tell that the whole concept of an ikebana exhibition seems [...]