The view above, of the entrance gate to the Honen'in Temple (法然院) in eastern Kyoto, is from the outside looking in, as opposed to the views in yesterday's post, which were from the inside looking out.

The path leading to the entrance gate is in two parts... the first being an exceptionally-well-done cobblestone path with what seems to me to be a decidedly modern feel...

Frankly, I find the modern feel to be a bit jarring in the rustic traditional temple setting, but I like the cobblestone path a bit better than what follows directly in front of the main [...]

Trying to get back into the swing of a normal routine after returning home to Kyoto from a three-week family vacation, I'm starting to look at more of the photos I took during the trip.

Half of the trip was spent in Bellingham Washington (near Vancouver) at my sister Marci's place -- it's her son Josh featured in "Slice of Americana: Anthony’s Cousin is Bat Boy at a Local Baseball Game" -- with our brothers Mike and Alan (and their families) later joining us so that all of Anthony's American cousins were together for the first time in four years.

I'm back in Kyoto after several weeks visiting family in The States. The size of my waiting inbox is impressively depressing.

Though the flight back had pluses and minuses, it was much nicer than the flight the previous week. Here are some of the pluses and minuses of the day, on our Cleveland→Minneapolis→Seattle→Osaka-Kansai trip on Delta Airlines...

Minus: Had to leave the hotel before its restaurant opened; missed free breakfast. Plus: Lady let us grab a couple of muffins anyway.

Minus: 6:00am line at Cleveland airport security was unexpectedly long. Plus: Airport staff said neighboring security area was [...]
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After having heard of (but not paid much attention to) the game "Minecraft", I got it for 10-year-old Anthony and me to play together, and found it to be delightful fun. The gameplay is completely unstructured (you explore, mine for resources, and build stuff), though how things work is a bit opaque at first until you figure out how to build stuff. Anthony did so quickly, so he kindly explained it to me.

However, I ran into trouble setting up the WiFi link to play together, and felt like an idiot once I realized what the problem was. I thought [...]
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The time we spent with family in Washington last week was filled with lots of sports, mostly baseball (both playing and watching), but Anthony's love of soccer was not overlooked. One day before the bulk of the family flew in, we visited the playground at his cousin Josh's elementary school to kick a ball around a bit...

Anthony's cousin Josh is really talented in baseball -- he's seven years old, but holds his own playing against twelve-year olds -- but he has little experience with soccer, so the play today was a bit lopsided.

The soccer was fun, but once [...]