Getting cabin fever from being cooped up inside due to the swine flu hysteria, Fumie wanted to get out and into nature, and I was all for it. We decided to visit the Sanzen-in temple (home page) in the mountains north-east of Kyoto, about 20 minutes by car.

We'd gone by the unattractive bus parking lots for it many times, and so based on that my preconceived image wasn't very complimentary, but it turns out that my prejudice was what most prejudice is: ignorant.

The unattractive parking lots are apparently private third-party lots, among many dotting the main road through [...]

One of the most wonderful aspects of Kyoto is that it has so many treasures – usually hidden in plain sight – such that you never run out of new discoveries. Today was yet another day of discovery for me, right in my own backyard.

10 minutes north by bicycle from my place is a small tree-covered outcropping called yoshidayama (Mt. Yoshida). I've sort of noticed it over the years, having driven near and around it often, but it's always been one of those things that I never actually paid much attention to. When you're driving by, it seems more [...]

This post continues from my previous post, "Cherry Blossoms in the Rain at the Heian Shrine". Even more so than in that post, a lot of the pictures this time have a sort of distinct (distinctly annoying?) feel, with multiple planes of focus (or the lack there of).

Also, as with some of the photos in last month's "Kyoto 2009 Cherry-Blossom Preview", some this time have had a touch of Lightroom's "negative clarity", which I apparently am enamored with. The shot above, of course, has had a lot of negative clarity applied, to give it a glowing pastel feel. I [...]

Last Tuesday, after Anthony went to school on the bus all by himself, I thought I'd take advantage of the rainy weekday morning (no crowds!) to check out the cherry blossoms in the garden of the Heian Shrine. The most common variety of cherry blossom around here (the pure white yoshino) are almost completely gone, but the Heian Shrine's justly famous garden is full of other varieties that were still pretty much at full bloom.

By the time I started over (the shrine didn't open for an hour and a half after Anthony had gone), the rain had started up [...]

Fueled by an unheard-of 14 hours of sleep last night (I went to bed at 7pm! Got up at 9am!! First time anything like this in.... hmmm, how old is Anthony?), I escaped the crush of tourists enjoying the cherry blossoms in my area and took Anthony on a trip across Kyoto and into the mountains to visit the Konzou Temple (金蔵寺), a temple I first visited somewhat by chance during my bamboo-filled Western-Kyoto Mountain Drive that I posted about two months ago.

I didn't mention the temple by name in that post because I thought I'd follow up with [...]