Flipping around in my image library while doing some Lightroom testing, I came across an image that I happen to see fullscreen, and was wowed by it much more than a small-sized view would have led me to expect. I'd published it before (two and a half years ago in "A Few Unremarkable Fern Pictures"), but with desktop-image sizes, so I thought I'd go ahead and do that today.

It's from a trip a couple of years ago to Giouji Temple, images from which have appeared many times on this blog... if you're interested, check out the "nearby photos" link [...]

So, after some recuperation at lunch during last-weekend's visit to Makino Ski with Anthony, we went back for some more sledding. Anthony took the photo above as I zipped past on a world-record run.

Some random pics of others sledding, having fun, and/or crashing....

Continued here...

The weather during our visit to the Makino Ski Area wasn't the only thing that was wild... some sledding was pretty wild, too.

Each run started with a long climb....

It's difficult to show the steepness. It was pretty steep. Few people actually ventured all the way to the top of the groomed area, where we came a few times...

It was exactly like the safe and wholesome summertime sledding I wrote about in "Slippery Green Slidy Day of Fun", except for two little things: the cold, and the ever-present threat of a horrible and painful death.

If you started [...]

Anthony has been wanting to go skiing ever since last year's YMCA ski experience, and finally yesterday the schedule allowed for it. Anthony and I took off early in the morning for the almost-two-hour drive north to the Makino Highlands, to the Makino Ski Area.

I didn't intend to pull my camera out much, wanting to concentrate on actually being a parent and helping him with the confidence-building experience that learning to ski could be. But it turns out that the 20 seconds of total ski time he had during last year's YMCA event was enough, and yesterday he basically [...]

Someone asked today whether the Japanese economy has been hit hard like the US economy has been for the last few years. My answer is that I suppose it has, but I don't think the recent global turmoil has had as big an impact in Japan as it has in The States, in the same way that I don't think taking a hammer to a corpse causes it all that much pain.

I first came to Japan in June '89, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was about $2,500. It's now $10,000.

The Japanese equivalent stock index was ¥33,000 when [...]
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