この間、週末の旅行でパンダが多い白浜(和歌山県)に行きました。

As I mentioned the other day, we took a short weekend trip to Shirahama (白浜), in Wakayama Prefecture a three-hour drive south from Kyoto. We left on Friday after Anthony got home from school, so arrived late in the evening, giving us all of Saturday and most of Sunday to enjoy the area.

We had a nice hybrid Western/Japanese room at Hotel Laforet....

The area is known for its small white-sand beach, and for having pandas (in what I assumed was a zoo, but as we'll see in a later post, the pandas are at an amusement/nature park). It [...]

(Update: something just doesn't seem right with this B&W version; I've posted a color version here.)

(Update: it's a gray crowned crane, as described here.)

It's been an active week since my last post. We spent a nice weekend in Shirahama, a three-hour drive from Kyoto, about which I'll post more later.

Upon our return, Anthony promptly got a cold and I had my first heart-arrhythmia episode in 20 months. Like last time the Sunrythm I took at home didn't work, but unlike last time they decided not to shock me back into a regular rhythm. Rather, the doc [...]

Fumie had a ballet performance this weekend down in Nagaokakyo City, and I had some hours to kill after dropping her off for the pre-performance rehearsal, so I met up with some friends to visit some local sites with the camera.

この間の日曜日、長岡京市の桜を見に行きました。雨と風の間にちょっぴり撮影できました。

The weather was unpleasant (cold, rainy, and windy), but there was a brief respite just as I was arriving.

The little lake between the road and the shrine has a series of boardwalks on it, and it seems that they were all recently rebuilt with bare wood....

I'd think it'd look better with some nice stain, but perhaps [...]

This article continues from part 1 about last week's photoshoot with Ikuko-san among the plum blossoms at the Kitano Tenman-gu Shrine.

先週、育子さんと一緒に撮影しました、北野天満宮の梅林で。 今日の記事は前半の続きです。

This is at the "banana-juice tree".

"Tilt your head down a bit", I instructed, and bam!, such a different look:

And another slight change creates another dramatic difference:

Here's a wigglegram to give a sense of the orchard's feel.

Admission to the plum grove also gets you some tea and sweets.

Yesterday, for the first time in 120+ years, Niomon Street in Kyoto is not draped in utility wires.

日本初の電気街灯の位置場仁王門通り(京都市岡崎)は昨日やっと都市美化で120年ぶり電気線等が無くなりました。

The first electric-power generator in Japan was built just up the street from where I live, around 1890. As such, the street in front of my place became the first in all Japan to have electric streetlights. At the time, I'm sure the associated power lines were a source of pride as a symbol of Japan's march toward modernity, but of course now they're just urban blight, and urban blight that Japan has traditionally taken to extremes.

The photo above appeared [...]