In yesterday's "Fall Colors in Nature, as Nature Intended" I wrote about an area of (what I think is) natural-growth deciduous trees in a long ravine along the mountain road between Kyoto and Otsu. In using the phrase "as nature intended", I meant to contrast the exquisite (but planned) landscaping of large temples like Eikando. I did not, however, mean to imply that nature intended such a gorgeous display of color to be marred by ugly visual pollution like guardrails, telephone poles, and junk.

But, like most areas of nature in Japan that are accessible to people, junk was aplenty, [...]

Anthony visited his friend Monet today. She lives up in Hieidaira, a community in the mountains between here (Kyoto) and Otsu. The drive up the twisty crowded mountain road was breathtaking, and while they played I returned for a few photos.

I stopped at a few places along the short (5-mile) route, but there were way too many colors to fit in one post; these are just a few shots from the first place I stopped....

Fall colors at a temple or shrine in the city can be really pretty, especially at a big place that gives you opportunities to [...]

Buddhist shrines and Shinto temples can be almost any size, ranging from huge sprawling multi-building complexes, down to little things a few feet square. Often they're found in clusters, so it was no surprise when Zak Braverman and I went to visit the small Himukai Shrine tucked away at the base of a mountain in eastern Kyoto, we found next to the parking lot a tiny room-sized shrine, the Kaneda Inari Shrine.

What was somewhat surprising (to me, at least) was the state of its gate, rotting so much that I didn't dare touch it for fear of toppling it.

We had a bit of fun this evening; with Fumie's folks and my friend Shimada-san, we went up to Shogunzuka (from where I often try to catch a photogenic sunset) to watch the Space Shuttle and the Space Station pass almost directly overhead, 215 miles up. We arrived, literally, just as the space station popped up over the horizon, 725 miles away, followed 10 or so seconds later by the space shuttle. They seemed to be moving quite fast – it was pretty obvious that they weren't airplanes – but it still took a couple of minutes for them to [...]
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In last week's "Family Bike Outing on a Brisk, Blustery Kyoto Afternoon", I wrote about the start of our weekend family bike outing, ending with us heading toward Kyoto Gosho, the grounds of the old imperial palace (which may not be that "old", since it seems that the emperor actually stopped by while we were there, the first I'd ever heard of such a thing).....

It started to sprinkle a bit, so we headed home, and another, larger ginkgo tree was glowing as if it had been transplanted from Chernobyl....

I mentioned the other day that I didn't really care [...]