We're on a short family trip to Hirosaki (弘前) at the northern end of the main Japanese island of Honshu. It's cold enough up here that their cherry blossoms are three or four weeks later than in Kyoto, and are now at their peak. There's also snow still on the ground in some shaded areas, despite being well into the 70s (~25C).

Our hotel is the Best Western Hotel Newcity Hirosaki, and I don't recommend it if moronic policies bother you. It's hot and muggy, but the room "air conditioner" works only as a heater until May 1st, after which [...]
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入学式から帰って来た疲れた息子をヘルパーに使わせていただきました。

Setting up a bunch of flash units in the living room to take pictures of Fumie in her costume for her recent part in her ballet school's production of The Nutcracker, I asked Anthony to step in so that I could take a test shot to gauge the initial flash settings I'd guessed at. He'd just come home from a short day at school and wanted to relax with his ice-cream snack, so he wasn't really in the mood to be a prop.

I was happy that I'd at least landed in the ballpark for the settings (they were [...]

After day 1 of our weekend trip to Shirahama Japan we debated on what to do for the second day before making the three-hour drive home to Kyoto that evening. The area is known for having pandas, but I'm not a big fan of zoos so I didn't really want to go. (I've lived a 5-minute walk from the Kyoto City Zoo for 10 years, and have been only twice.) But Anthony wanted to see the pandas, so off to "Adventure World" we went.

Upon walking in it was clear it wasn't a normal zoo, with the entrance hall being [...]

(Update: something just doesn't seem right with this B&W version; I've posted a color version here.)

(Update: it's a gray crowned crane, as described here.)

It's been an active week since my last post. We spent a nice weekend in Shirahama, a three-hour drive from Kyoto, about which I'll post more later.

Upon our return, Anthony promptly got a cold and I had my first heart-arrhythmia episode in 20 months. Like last time the Sunrythm I took at home didn't work, but unlike last time they decided not to shock me back into a regular rhythm. Rather, the doc [...]

During aerobics at the gym I work up quite the sweat. It's good to work out, but the sweat is uncomfortable and can be unsociable/dangerous if it makes for a slippery floor or splatters someone, so I've been trying a few different shirts to hopefully get things under control.

I'd been using the Uniqlo "Dry" T-shirts that I wrote about two years ago, but they're for daily wear, and workout amounts of sweat overwhelm them.

I finally found a fantastic shirt, the "Under Armour Men's HeatGear Sonic Compression Long Sleeve" (available at Amazon, though I bought mine at Amazon Japan). [...]
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