As Nils suggested the other day, I visited the hiking trails behind the Westin Miyako Kyoto Hotel today. The trails are extremely simple (with mild stairs the whole way), and because it's all shaded, it was substantially less strenuous than moving around inside the gardens at the water treatment plant of recent posts.

I brought Anthony with me, and it was thoroughly enjoyable for both of us. (It was much better than when I bought him on a multi-kilometer, much more difficult hike up the Daimonji Mountain last December, where I had to carry him most of the way. Sigh, [...]

In our trip to Hokkaido last week, we took a car ferry most of the way. We drove the 83 miles from Kyoto to the Tsuruga ferry port, then boarded the Shin Nihonkai Line's ferry named Suisen (which means Daffodil).

Looking at that big rope, I have to ask: if you had to choose, would you rather be caught between the ship and the dock, or read my blog? It's a question of whether you'd prefer to be moored to death, or bored to death....

(yeeach, that's rank, I know 🙂 )

Anyway, the boat is 200 meters long, and [...]

I went again today to the Kyoto Keage Water-Treatment Plant to see the azaleas (although I didn't know they were called "azaleas" until looking up the word yesterday).

The pictures yesterday didn't give much feel for the overall site, so I thought I'd show some today that attempt to. I'm sure I won't be successful, for as I said yesterday, it's a huge sprawling site with many terraces, pathways, alcoves, gardens, nooks, and crannies.

The view is nice enough from the outside, with many flowering azaleas to brighten it. The picture above is from across Sanjo Street, looking down the [...]

Every year, the local water-treatment plant opens its gates for four days so the public can enjoy its manicured gardens of about 4,600 azalea shrubs (tsutsuji -- つつじ -- in Japanese).

Kyoto's Keage Water-Treatment Plant (蹴上浄水場) is on a sprawling hillside less a kilometer from our place, and I've long enjoyed the brilliantly colored (mostly insanely bright pink) hillsides of shrubs that are visible from the road, but until I ventured inside yesterday, I didn't realize how much I'd been missing. The place is huge, and full of amazing and beautiful sights.

It rises 68 meters (225 feet) in elevation [...]