I ended my previous post, Kyoto Mountain Restaurant "Yama no Ie Hasegawa", commenting that I wanted to take Fumie to the middle-of-nowhere restaurant I'd visited the other day with Paul Barr, after having seen it mentioned on a friend's blog. I did that today, visiting for lunch with Fumie and Anthony.

We sat out on the enclosed-for-the-winter porch.

After our delicious lunch, I got out my camera, Fumie had a cup of coffee, and Anthony clowned around...

When a cat started meowing loudly just outside the porch, Anthony went over and meowed back. Back and forth they had a conversation....

Anthony's school had a day off on Monday, unlike other schools in Kyoto, so I took the opportunity to bring him to the Kyoto City Science Center for Youth, which is sort of like The Exploratorium in San Francisco, though much smaller. Because other schools were in session, we had the place essentially to ourselves.

This post looks at a few of the mirror-related exhibits....

The photos above were with an exhibit that had two mirrors that pivoted. Next to it was an exhibit with three mirrors, the third closing in like a door to make a triangle-shaped mirror room. [...]

Today is a national holiday of some sort in Japan, so we took a drive out to the mountains to take some photos for our Christmas and New-Year's cards. We wanted to go somewhere pretty but uncrowded, and since it was a mad house in Kyoto, we headed out to the same area as in my previous post, "Beating the Crowds at the Middle-of-Nowhere Sokushouji Temple". We got our photos, and since we were in the neighborhood, I wanted to show Fumie and Anthony the temple...

The roof near the top of the steps is for a little seating/rest area, [...]

Picking up from yesterday's "KidZania Visit #3, Part 1" about last Friday's visit to KidZania, Anthony and Gen were waiting to start their stint as dentists....

The worker had talked to them a bit, then they did a quick paper-rock-scissors competition to decide something, and the photo above was when Anthony apparently won. From what happened later, I think it was to decide who would be the doctor, and who would be the assistant.

Since Anthony and Gen were a pair, the staff let the little girl perform a procedure by herself while Anthony and Gen waited, so they could [...]

Anthony's school had a day off last Friday, so I took the opportunity of him having a free school day to bring him to his third visit to KidZania (the amazing kid place that I introduced in this post). Anthony's friend Gen joined us, for his second visit.

I had Gen decide which would be the first event, and after considerate consultation with Anthony, flight training won out over what was apparently a close contest with being a police officer. Anthony was excited by both options, though both had done flight training before: Anthony's prior flight-training experience.

This little girl [...]