Today was a really lovely day... warmer and less crowded than yesterday. So, of course, I stayed in all day working on my Lightroom plugins. But I did take some pictures during the day yesterday, in addition to the cherry blossoms at dusk that I've already posted, so I'll share some in this post.

Most regular cherry trees in this area are at 50%-70% full bloom, but the trees right outside my window are closer to 100%, so they made for a nice view, and attracted the weekend crowds. Most everyone had a camera.

The picture above includes almost all [...]

View full post »

I still have many pictures I want to share from our trip to the onsen at Kinosaki a couple of months ago. These pictures are from the evening (it was a one-night stay) after dressing in yukata to head out to an onsen for our evening bath.

Being Silly With Mommy Ninja Comedian?

Here's the onsen we went to, which was just a minute from our ryokan...

View full post »

It was Fumie's birthday the other day, and Anthony had the idea to bake cookies for her. I thought it'd be a great project for them to do together, but he wanted to do it as a surprise for her, so it fell to me. This meant, as a start, that I had to investigate whether we had an oven.

It turns out that our microwave oven doubles as a heat convection oven, so that was set. Armed with a recipe in hand, we went to the store and got flour, yeast, sugar, etc., and came home to mix it [...]

View full post »

I brought Anthony skating today, to Kyoto's Aquarena, a big swimming complex that turns one of the pools into a skating rink during the winter. Surprisingly enough, they had my size skates to rent (size 32; for reference, most stores sell shoes only up to size 28), so I could join him.

I think it was the first time I went skating in 20+ years, but it was Anthony's third time, having gone two other times during school-type events. Like many city services, skating is free for him until he starts first grade, so I was happy to get one [...]

View full post »

So, finishing up from yesterday's post about our fun day on nearby Yabasekihantou Island, after the obstacle-course play area, Anthony headed over to a big rope-climbing thing...

I took the shot above thinking it'd make a great opening for a post, but I ended up liking the impact of the almost-hidden feet hanging out, so chose that one to open with instead.

When he came down, he ended up sitting on a rope with nothing under for quite a while, and he wasn't sure how to get down. So I told him to lean forward and grab the rope in [...]

View full post »