I spent the most wonderful day on Friday cycling around the mountains beyond Uji City, near Kyoto.

I had gone to the area earlier in the week for what I called a "Kasatori Festival", doing the climb up Mt. Kasatori from all four directions. It's a tiny mountain that I visited on one of my first bike rides, at that time finishing just one of the short climbs utterly spent.

I'm in better shape now, though the ridiculously-steep Eastern approach climb killed me.

While futzing around with the ride data afterwards, I realized that this was the area I visited [...]

I'm back in Kyoto, after spending the better part of a month with my folks in Ohio. Mom continues to recover from her February stroke. I snapped a few photos out the window as we crossed The States on the Cleveland → San Francisco flight.

An hour later crusing along well above the clouds, I noticed another plane keeping pace with us in the far distance (just a tiny speck, dead center in this next photo).

Not quite the closeup view from eight years ago. 🙂

I arrived back home in Kyoto last Wednesday evening, and slept well the first [...]

My niece Jena, who appeared on my blog six years ago today with "Uzu iPad App Reviewed By 23-Month-Old Jena", said she'd like to see more wigglegrams, so here are a couple from my photo archives just for her.

The first one comes from a November 2014 trip to the Flower Temple (花の寺) in southern Kyoto that produced "A Quick Peek at Kyoto’s Hanadera Temple" (with its own wigglegram), and "An Among-the-Fall-Colors What-am-I? Quiz". This wigglegram features Damien, his red hat, and a big bell.

This next wigglegram is from a trip to the Kongorinji Temple (金剛輪寺) a few [...]

My brother Alan and his family stopped for a bit by my folks' place on their back home, for some fun and relaxation. Prior to saying goodbye, Titi joked around...

I traveled again yesterday from Japan to Ohio (Kyoto → Osaka → Tokyo → Chicago → Cleveland → Rootstown) to spend some time with my folks, especially since my mom had a stroke earlier in the year. I wanted Anthony to see the property I grew on one more time, so he came along for this trip.

I don't like having to pop up to Tokyo for the transpacific flight, but that hour-long flight from Osaka to Tokyo always holds the promise of a nice Mt. Fuji view, so that's something to look forward to. Mt. Fuji isn't quite so [...]