Anthony had a short day at school today, so while he was there, I spent half an hour at the Heian Shrine again for all the 7-, 5-, and 3-year-old kids dressed up in fancy clothes for the "7-5-3 festival", as I mentioned earlier in the week (and followed up on yesterday).

Of course, there is the occasional pretty leaf...

After school, Anthony and I visited Zak so Anthony and his son Gen could play, and Zak and I could make boring small talk about cameras for a few hours.

Zak lives on the 15th floor of a building with [...]

Wow, my third post of the day. I didn't intend to take any pictures today, but with Anthony's style choices in the morning, and the stunningly orange sunset in the evening, I've had no choice.

On top of that, I went a bit early to pick up Anthony from school, and stopped in to the grounds of the old imperial palace (Kyoto Gosho) to check on the fall foliage there. I think it's safe to say that the opening act is on stage, but the headliners are still in the dressing room.

The "opening act" are some of the trees [...]

An old friend from my days working at Omron in the early 90s visited Kyoto today. He's German and lives in Germany, and I hadn't seen him since he attended my wedding in Kyoto in 1998, where he was the only one to fly in from outside Japan. Along the same lines more than 10 years later, he took the opportunity of a business trip to Korea to pop over to Kyoto for the weekend, just in time for the start of some nice fall colors.

Unfortunately, the weather was dark and gloomy for much of the afternoon, with intermittent [...]

Fumie's dad is stationed in Malaysia for work, but since he's in town for his 60th birthday, he thought it'd be nice to try to see some fall colors. (They apparently don't have seasons in Malaysia.)

I've posted a few fall-color previews (Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3) with photos from previous years because it's still way too early in the season this year, but as I mentioned the other day, there are a few hints of color starting to appear, so we all headed out for a drive in the mountains today.

After about three hours (half [...]

The old pictures of Anthony swinging in the park two years ago that I posted last week reminded me of some foliage photos I took on that same outing early in Kyoto's 2006 fall-foliage season. So, I thought I'd use them to kick off Part III of my Kyoto Fall Foliage Preview (prior installments: Part I - Part II).

I was sitting on my bicycle with the wind howling when I tried to get the shot of the leaf... very hard to get, much less hold, focus.

The "nearby photos" link under the picture above brings you to a lot [...]