Anthony visited his friend Monet today. She lives up in Hieidaira, a community in the mountains between here (Kyoto) and Otsu. The drive up the twisty crowded mountain road was breathtaking, and while they played I returned for a few photos.

I stopped at a few places along the short (5-mile) route, but there were way too many colors to fit in one post; these are just a few shots from the first place I stopped....

Fall colors at a temple or shrine in the city can be really pretty, especially at a big place that gives you opportunities to [...]

We had a bit of fun this evening; with Fumie's folks and my friend Shimada-san, we went up to Shogunzuka (from where I often try to catch a photogenic sunset) to watch the Space Shuttle and the Space Station pass almost directly overhead, 215 miles up. We arrived, literally, just as the space station popped up over the horizon, 725 miles away, followed 10 or so seconds later by the space shuttle. They seemed to be moving quite fast – it was pretty obvious that they weren't airplanes – but it still took a couple of minutes for them to [...]
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In last week's "Family Bike Outing on a Brisk, Blustery Kyoto Afternoon", I wrote about the start of our weekend family bike outing, ending with us heading toward Kyoto Gosho, the grounds of the old imperial palace (which may not be that "old", since it seems that the emperor actually stopped by while we were there, the first I'd ever heard of such a thing).....

It started to sprinkle a bit, so we headed home, and another, larger ginkgo tree was glowing as if it had been transplanted from Chernobyl....

I mentioned the other day that I didn't really care [...]

In my August post "Aunt Chickee and the 6½th Cousin", I noted that Anthony is one of six cousins (one of my folks' six grandchildren), but that his Aunt Melissa (AKA "Aunt Chickee") had one in the oven.

Claire Ann Friedl was born yesterday around noon. 7 lb, 1 oz, 19 1/4". (3,200g, 49cm), joining Grace Elizabeth (just shy of 4½) and Luke Allan (2¼) in Mike and Chickee's household.

Congrats!

In my previous posts about this weekend's visit to the gardens of the Eikando Temple in eastern Kyoto ("Holy Cow, the Gardens at Kyoto's Eikando Temple are Gorgeous!" and "More From Yesterday's Trip to the Eikando Temple") I purposefully chose photos devoid of (or mostly devoid of) people, but in fact it was quite crowded.

I detest crowds. I grew up in rural Ohio, and am definitely not a city person. The crowds leading to the Eikando Temple were oppressive, made worse by the fact that it's right next to the Nanzen Temple, itself noted for its fall colors (as [...]