From our visit last month that yielded the "Gate of Disrepair" post.

Continued here...

So, the other day, I posted the above photo without a title, soliciting captions. Almost two dozen suggestions later (all of which were kept hidden until after I posted this followup, so as not to influence subsequent suggestions) and the overwhelming theme is "layers" and "strata".

Of course, the wonderful banding of different colors and textures is what prompted me to take the photo in the first place. It took it from my balcony, looking across the little stream next to our place to the path on the other side. I've lived here for four years and never noticed it [...]

Chipping away at the backlog of things I want to share, here are some photos from a short outing with vacationing American Jon Van Dalen in July. He was traveling Japan with his wife and her sister, and while in Kyoto I took them on a drive in the mountains north of the city.

Along the road in a small village, we noticed a shrine gate over a path leading away up a hill. It was visible from the road only for a moment as driving by, so we were lucky to spot it. I'd driven by many times in [...]

When Anthony wakes up, he gathers the friends he slept with, comes into the living room and deposits them somewhere random before starting his play for the day, or getting ready for school, etc. The photo above is from a week or so ago, though it's much the same every day save for the set of "and friends" that fluctuates often. (The pink pig, for example, is a recent addition.)

Realizing that he'll all-too-soon grow out of this childish cuteness, I took the snapshot last week to remember it by.

We received George at a baby shower thrown by my [...]

I was going to post this with a caption that I had in mind while taking it, but when I asked a friend how he'd caption it, he came up with something on a completely different tack that surprised me. So before I bias you with my caption or his, I thought I'd request others' thoughts, too.

So as not to prejudice later readers, I'll hold all comments in moderation for a day or so.

UPDATE: subbmitted suggestions are now showing below -- Thanks! -- and my followup post has desktop-background versions of the image, as well as my thoughts [...]