Last weekend, Anthony went on an overnight trip with Fumie's folks to Okunoshima (大久野島), "Rabbit Island", a small island in the Seto Inland Sea a couple-hour train-ride and a short boat-ride away. The small island has a large population of wild but friendly rabbits that have trained people to visit and feed them.

I didn't know why the island was full of rabbits until I came across its Wikipedia article while trying to figure out how to pronounce its name (大久野島). It's an interesting (and disturbing story), which you can find at that link.

UPDATE: we took Anthony ourselves a [...]

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Anthony noticed a crown-shaped image on a carton of milk (seen at right), and asked what it was. I explained that it was what happens when a drop of milk splashes, and he was quite interested, though somewhat skeptical.

I promised to show him, explaining that it was too fast for the eye to notice, but that we could use a camera to stop the action. His interest was piqued.

I set the camera up on a tripod, got a black dish and put some milk in it, set my SB-800 flash as a slave on 1/64 manual power and [...]

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It was a supremely wonderful day today, with perfect sun and temperatures. The hysteria from the swine-flu plague is mostly past, so we went out for a family bike ride, our first in ages... perhaps the first since last summer in Whistler, Canada.

Just prior to taking the picture above, I discovered that it's possible – though not particularly easy, and certainly not becoming – to change the focus selector switch on a Nikon D700 body with your teeth. (I was riding a standard mamachari Japanese bicycle, which is inherently unstable, and so unlike the bikes I rode growing up, [...]

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While putting Anthony down to bed last night, he claimed (incorrectly) that he wasn't tired, and so going to bed would be "boring". We'd been in a large five-story toy store recently, so I suggested that he pass the time by imagining that he lived in the toy store...

Me: What would you play with? Anthony:      Everything! Me: Well, you've got to start somewhere. Anthony:I wish I could really live there. Me: Well, you can, when you get older. You can buy a toy store and live there. Anthony:Really? Me: Sure, you just have to save a lot of money to [...]
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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 [...]

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