In the 80s my folks hosted an exchange student from Germany. We've kept in touch since, and she stopped by Kyoto last weekend on her way to give a talk at a plant-biology conference in Okayama.

The pleasant walk along the Kamo river that I posted about yesterday was on my way meet Katrin for the day's outing. We'd arranged to meet in front of a clock on the south side of Kyoto Station....

It's a popular time to be in Kyoto, so the hotel at the station is ridiculously priced (~US400/night!), so I was thrilled when Fumie found a [...]

Cherry blossoms are starting to bloom in earnest, but as I wrote the other day, they're particularly far along near the Kamo River between Gojo and Shichijo streets.

I've posted lots of buds and blossoms lately (here, here, here, here, here, and here) so I've decided I've had enough of that, so I'm going to concentrate on the wider, human picture.

No little melodrama to be seen this time... just a pleasant scene.

The first and second floors of this yellow building, across the river from the corner of Kawabata and Shichijo streets, have good restaurants. The second floor is [...]

I've been super crazy busy lately, working on a new plugin and visiting with an old friend in town, which explains no posts in the last week despite having such a backlog of things to write about. But I did get out today a bit with my friend to enjoy some early cherry blossoms.

This photo is all hazy because it was shot through several branches worth of blossoms much nearer to the lens than the one the focus is on. It's not a photo with much technical quality, but I like the vibe.

Continued here...

I stopped by the Imperial Household Agency office today at the Kyoto Imperial Palace Park (京都御所) to make a reservation to visit the Katsura Palace next month, and brought along my camera in case anything was blooming.

There are a lot of cherry trees in the park, but I think they're just budding so far. The blossoms are peach or, perhaps in some case, plum like those we sat the other day in "Plum Blossoms in Full Bloom at Kyoto’s Kitano Tenmangu Shrine".

I knew it was going to rain and so was better prepared than my last outing which [...]

This post is just a bunch of extra desktop-background images from the Enkouji Temple (円光寺) in Kyoto last fall, that I didn't have space to fit in "The Gorgeous Enkouji Temple of North-East Kyoto" the other day.

Next are a few "reflections of the trees in the pond" shots similar to "Pond" the other day. That one is still my favorite, but these have their own nice character...

Now a few more random garden-scene shots...