Archive for the 'Temples and Shrines' Category

Posts about various temples and shrines

NORU Group Ride and a Visit to Hiyoshi Dam

Saturday was a NORU group ride with 14 people, my first big group ride this year, I think. (The first NORU group ride was this lovely ride last fall.)

Vincent was doing something that looked quite strange... can you notice it in the photo?

Vincent suggested we take a short alternate to the planned route, down a lovely descent. I had the camera and so took it slow at first, but still got upwards of a safe 70kph. So fun.

The route brings us past a picturesque lake with a cemetery on the hillside opposite. It was pretty hazy so [...]


View full post »
Revisiting Last Year’s Young-Adult Archery Ceremony

去年の成人の日、「三十三間堂大的全国大会」の撮影。14ヶ月遅いですが、この記事の続きです。

As I seem to do more often than not, I never did follow up on an early-2015 blog post that I intended to be just an introduction. In January 2015 I posted "The 2015 Young-Adult Archery Event at the Sanjusangendo Temple" with a few pictures and a "To be continued..." ending. So here we are, 16 months later, I've come across the event in my photo archives.The event for recently-come-of-age adults is introduced and descried on the earlier post, so I'll just get into the photos.

As I've mentioned in other posts about this annual event, the crowds are [...]


View full post »
Back In Japan After Three Months Away

After three months away, I'm now back in Japan.

I'd left suddenly at the start of February because my mom had a stroke, but she'd recovered enough by the start of May that I could return.

My return was on United Airlines, which over the decades I've flown more than any other. They used to be a good airline, but have gone stunningly downhill in the last decade (yielding occasional rants from me, such as this and this), so it was with trepidation that I tried again. The saving grace was paying the extra $250 to bump myself up to [...]


View full post »
Poking Around Miyajima Island and its Daisho-in Temple

今回は二年毎の宮島旅行の写真。

Last week I caught a cold that absolutely lay waste to me... I think it was the worst cold I've ever gotten. I'm mostly recovered now. Somewhere along the line I heard a friend was headed to Miyajima, and that reminded me that I've got plenty of photos I've not yet posted, so while I recover, here are a few photos from a trip to Miyajima two years ago...

I've posted photos of the famous gate many times, including in:

Main Gate of the Itsukushima Shrine, at Night Why I Shoot Raw: Recovering From Disasters Miyajima at Low Tide [...]
View full post »
Great Excitement in Small Pleasures: A Starbucks Opens Nearby

The old Kyoto Theater Hall near my house reopened today after some years of renovation, emerging as "ROHM Theater Kyoto" (ロームシアター京都). ROHM is a semiconductor company based here in Kyoto, last mentioned on my blog more than 10 years ago, before I got into photography or even blogging that much, on this post about their annual Christmas lights at their company headquarters. They must have paid a boatload of money to someone to get branding rights for this renovated concert/theater complex.

I have a vague recollection of seeing some kind of performance at the original theater 25 years ago, when [...]


View full post »