Today is the 25th anniversary of my first arrival in Japan. 来日２５周年になりました！

It was June 19th, 1989 that I flew into Tokyo from California after having finished grad school and then lived with my brothers for several months while waiting for my work visa to be approved. I was met at the airport by Krish Kulkarni, whom I had never met, but had no trouble finding because he's the twin brother of my best friend at grad school, Ram Kulkarni (who later went on to be the best man at my wedding, and I at his).

A day or [...]

With Anthony away on a school trip, Fumie and I made a day-trip date to Awaji Island two hours by car south from Kyoto, where our first stop was a late lunch in heaven, A.K.A "Beefland Prince".

息子は修学旅行中なので、妻と一緒に淡路島の日帰りデートをしました。まずは「ビーフランド大公」でめっちゃ美味いステーキを戴きました。

You can't begin to imagine how good this steak was. When I say the steak literally melts in your mouth, I'm literally using the word "literally" for its literal meaning... the fats in the meat just melt away. It's almost unearthly when compared to any other steak I've ever had in this life (including the fantastic teppanyaki steak I wrote about the [...]

We had a brief heavy rain this afternoon a couple of hours before sunset, and so with the clearing air I thought to make a visit to check out the views from the Shogunzuka Overlook, which I haven't been to in a while. (However, the "nearby photos" link under any photo brings you to the bazillion photos I've posted from up here over the years.)

今日の集中豪雨の後、将軍塚からの景色を見に行きました。

It reminded me of one of the first times I posted photos from up here seven years ago, also after a storm. Photos from that day also appeared on last year's "Views of Kyoto [...]

This post picks up from "My Mt. Hiei Climb Challenge 2014, Part 1", where I'd ended with having completed the ascent in good time and good form.

It was still early (12:45ish), so I decided to check out some of the temples farther into the mountains.

Some of the paths in these mountains were laid out thousands of years ago. I'm sure these old guardrail posts aren't that old, but this next photo gives a hint to the age because the bigger post, which essentially looks brand new compared to the guardrail posts, is dated April 1936...

Dotted here and [...]

As I mentioned the other day, I recently did my third-annual Mt. Hiei (比叡山) hike, the first two years ago having been what prompted me to get in shape. Comparing this hike to previous ones is a yardstick to measure how well I'm getting in shape.

I've documented the route well enough in previous years (two years ago   -   last year) so I didn't intend to do it again this year. I did bring along a smaller camera (a Nikon D700) and the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 lens that I bought accidentally to document my progress via timestamps on [...]