During my outing the other day near Kyoto's famous Kiyomizu Temple, the crowds were out in force, but the atmosphere was still quite pleasant. It helped that it was the nicest day, weather wise, in ages... warm, with no rain.

Amidst the hustle and bustle in the area outside the temple, these two ladies somehow found a wonderful backdrop inexplicably devoid of people, so one posed for the other, creating the kind of nature+kimono scene I'm partial to.

Mostly I thought it'd look better to focus on the photographer to leave the subject of her photo out of focus in [...]

In the 80s my folks hosted an exchange student from Germany. We've kept in touch since, and she stopped by Kyoto last weekend on her way to give a talk at a plant-biology conference in Okayama.

The pleasant walk along the Kamo river that I posted about yesterday was on my way meet Katrin for the day's outing. We'd arranged to meet in front of a clock on the south side of Kyoto Station....

It's a popular time to be in Kyoto, so the hotel at the station is ridiculously priced (~US400/night!), so I was thrilled when Fumie found a [...]

Cherry blossoms are starting to bloom in earnest, but as I wrote the other day, they're particularly far along near the Kamo River between Gojo and Shichijo streets.

I've posted lots of buds and blossoms lately (here, here, here, here, here, and here) so I've decided I've had enough of that, so I'm going to concentrate on the wider, human picture.

No little melodrama to be seen this time... just a pleasant scene.

The first and second floors of this yellow building, across the river from the corner of Kawabata and Shichijo streets, have good restaurants. The second floor is [...]

I stopped by the Imperial Household Agency office today at the Kyoto Imperial Palace Park (京都御所) to make a reservation to visit the Katsura Palace next month, and brought along my camera in case anything was blooming.

There are a lot of cherry trees in the park, but I think they're just budding so far. The blossoms are peach or, perhaps in some case, plum like those we sat the other day in "Plum Blossoms in Full Bloom at Kyoto’s Kitano Tenmangu Shrine".

I knew it was going to rain and so was better prepared than my last outing which [...]

I made a short visit today to the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine (北野天満宮), famous for its plum blossoms. I'd gone three weeks ago when only a few blossoms had appeared, but now it's pretty much in full bloom.

There was the slightest of rain... you didn't need an umbrella for the most part... which kept the crowds down. It was quite pleasant.

There are many different kinds of plum, with a wide variety of pinks, creams, and whites...

Not everyone was there to take pictures. This next shot is the same scene as this one from my previous post about this [...]