During our trip to Hokkaido a month ago, we twice ate lunch at the Furano Wine House (富良野ワインハウス), a pleasant restaurant at the top of a small monadnock that offers commanding views in three directions. Even though the top of the hill is only 50 meters above the surrounding plane, the views make it feel like it's much higher.

There's a tiny park next to the restaurant that's thoroughly enjoyable for a four year old, including steep banks to climb along with the normal attractions of a park (place to run, bugs, spider webs, etc).

As part of Aunt Jeannette's visit to Kyoto, Anthony and I tagged along on one of her tour days, which brought me to the Kiyomizu Temple (清水寺) for the first time in many years. I really have no excuse for not visiting sooner, since it's just a mile away.

These days, this temple seems to be known among foreign tourists mostly because it's included among some company's "new seven wonders of the world" profit campaign. Both the campaign and this temple's inclusion in such a list seem like a total crock to me, but the temple is wonderful nevertheless.

There [...]

Part of Aunt Jeannette's tour of Kyoto was a visit to a tea room to experience Japanese sweet making. The tour guide not only let me tag along, but let me enjoy the events as well, so I got to see the sweets being made, take some pictures, and then eat them. 🙂

The sweet maker is master Ji'ichiro Kunieta (國枝治一郎), who has been specializing in a particular genre of sweets for 40 years, taking over from his father as the fourth generation of a shop, Matsuya (松彌), started by his great-grandfather in 1888. It's apparently quite famous, as a [...]

Having visited Kibune with Aunt Jeannette yesterday, I was reminded of my trip to Kibune a month ago. On that trip, we'd eaten at the northern-most restaurant (Hirobun -- ひろ文), then made a short climb to a mini "associated shrine" area related to the larger Kibune Shrine (貴船神社) located half a kilometer downstream.

It was a little, quiet area with a small gate and a tiny shrine. In the photo above, the road and restaurant are out of sight below the gate.

The shrine had two little places for tying wish papers, one of which is shown [...]

We spent another day with Aunt Jeannette, this time partially at home. She brought a Thomas lunch box and puzzle for Anthony, and helped him do it. It was slow going at first, but they built up steam as he got hooked.

We also took the time to push my scooter out front and pose for a few pictures....

The best part of the day was a lunch in Kibune, which I'll write about another time. It was a really fantastic experience.

Aunt Jeannette is here on a tour run by Alumni Holidays, with others from all around The States. [...]