We decided to have a relaxing day, and took drive north an hour and a half to a middle-of-nowhere cafe that Fumie had read about on someone else's blog. It turns out that it's run by a guy who used to be some kinds of architectural-plastics engineer in Osaka, and left it all behind to follow his passion for, oddly enough, stone kilns. That translated into a cafe with fresh pizza on the menu.

The place is called kamo no shirabe (かものしらべ), which means either "melody of the ducks", or "sounds of the river", depending on whether the kamo in [...]

Okay, that's not really what the guy pointing was saying... or maybe it was, I dunno, I was 100 feet away.

Kyoto Tower, is, of course, the big bright spire left of center. Although it's not that pretty, it's tall and easy to see, so it's made cameo appearances in my blog several times, including from close up, from the same spot as today's pictures (Shogunuzkua), from far away, and from very far away.

I had a few spare minutes this evening, so I drove up to Shogunzuka (where Anthony and I watched a helicopter take off the other day). [...]

The parking lot I use near Anthony's kindergarten used to be part of a temple garden that, apparently, contained some bamboo. We've noticed of late some bamboo shooting up through the asphalt, growing at an astonishing rate. (Well, at least, astonishing if you're not already familiar with how fast bamboo grows.)

The parking lot owner (who also owns the temple) doesn't care for it, so he hacked it off once when it popped up last year. You can see its remains to the left of the growing shoot above. I've been watching this one for the last couple of weeks, [...]

I spotted this snail on a small tiled "roof" on top of a short wall outside Giouji Temple in western Kyoto. He seemed quite photogenic, as did the wall. Gioujo temple has all kinds of pretty walls of various different constructions, although this external wall (seen in the left of this picture) is likely the least interesting.

Most of the old nails put in to secure the tiles were sticking out like this one. Perhaps the wood underneath got wet, expanded, and squeezed the nail out? It seemed quite odd to me.

The temple itself is small and not very [...]

The other day when Anthony and I did some local hiking that ended up at the back entrance to the Kiyomizu Temple, we got to watch a helicopter take off from the helipad at Shogunzuka, the top of one of Kyoto's "Eastern Mountains".

Besides a helipad and hiking trails, Shogunzuka offers some nice views of Kyoto, but unless you're at the overlook, it feels like you're in the middle of nowhere...

This helipad is just a few minutes' drive from the Kyoto Westin Miyako Hotel, generally considered to be the best hotel in Kyoto. Until the government's Kyoto State Guest [...]