Anthony was looking forward to his shichi-go-san wishes-for-a-long-life children's blessing event because he had been assured that it involved candy and toys. We were looking forward to it because we knew he'd look so cute, as the Anthony in a Hakama picture I posted the other day bore out.

It's just a short walk to the shrine, and it was a wonderful day, so we headed out with Fumie's folks...

The shrine does a brisk business as a venue for marriage ceremonies and photo shoots. A friend of a friend got married here a few years ago, and you can [...]

Another photo from yesterday's Shichi-go-san event with Anthony. Anthony gestures to his grandfather with his ougi (folding fan).

I thought I'd give this one a try in B&W, which is a much more difficult proposition than you might expect if you've never done it. In Adobe Lightroom you can adjust all kinds of parameters for how the conversion from color is done, completely changing the character of the result in wild swings with a flick of a slider. Even while remaining in the grayscale world, the creative opportunities are endless... and if you are not guided by an innate sense [...]

As I mentioned the other day, today Anthony had his first shichi-go-san event, an important milestone in Japanese culture for kids aged six, four and two. The event's name means "seven, five, three", and represent the ages when you add a year to account for their time in the womb.

The Heian Shrine near our place is very popular for this, and last year I would sometimes just hang out around the shrine during and photograph the kids, the results of which I've posted in "Kids in Kimono: Cute Enough to Eat", "More Kids in Kimono: Still Cute", and one [...]

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we took Fumie's folks out for their 35th wedding anniversary, to Moritaya (モリタ屋) for sukiyaki.

Sukiyaki involves cooking fresh veggies and meat right at the table, with a bit of sauce and water. One specialty to the Kyoto style is to sprinkle a bit of special sugar (some kind of large-grain coarse white sugar) into the pan, which both adds a bit of sweetness and prevents the meat from burning.

I had a photogenic day today. Riding bikes out in the park with Anthony, I taught him how to ride down steps. He was apprehensive, but I demonstrated, he tried it, and was successful.

Time flys... it seems that it was only just the other day that he got is first bike and learned to ride.

While we were there, we got a call from Fumie telling us to check in at the Heian Shrine for a fitting for Anthony to wear a hakama (traditional Japanese male formal ware) at a shichi-go-san children's-blessing festival event next week. We've always wanted [...]