I mentioned in yesterday's very long Joseph Niisima and The Savory Family Bible post that my friend Arthur's brother John had visited him from The States to, among other things, remodel Arthur's kitchen. John has returned home, but asked me to post some thoughts he had from his trip, so here they are...

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I've posted many times the view of Kyoto from the overlook at Shogunzuka, such as this photo from a post last year:

... or this photo from a post two weeks ago...

The location I took these shots from is officially part of the "Higashiyama Summit Park" ("Higashiyama" – Eastern Mountain – being the name of the short mountain it's at the top of), but the area is better known as "Shogunzuka", a man-made mound of some sort dating back to the 700s. It's now part of a temple's grounds, but I've always just come to the park's public overlook, [...]

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On our drive to the Hiyoshi Dam the other day, while driving through the mountains in the middle of nowhere, we came across a set of buildings that had clearly been abandoned for a very long time....

There were at least three buildings, probably all part of one homestead. I'm guessing that thatched-roof house is the original, with the tile-roofed buildings being more modern. It's just a guess, and in any case, "modern" is relative....

You can see that there's quite a stone embankment in front of the thing, probably a result of the original builder having created a level [...]

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Dipping into the archives, here are some photos from almost exactly two years ago, near where the city butts up against Mt. Daimonji, where developed land ends and one of the paths up to Daimonji starts.

Still in the city part, at this time of year you get some nice colors...

The distinctively-maintained shrubs in front of the house appeared on my blog once before, here, and some of the photos on this Kyoto Fall-Color Preview from last year were taken in this immediate vicinity, as were some on this different Kyoto Fall-Color Preview.

Continuing on toward the mountain, once [...]

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