We're finally getting our money's worth out of this kid. 🙂

Trying to get him to put away a toy he's just finished playing with is like pulling teeth, but for some reason, he enjoys cleaning the veranda. I dunno. It may have something to do with being able to freely splash water around....

I don't know where this is going, but we're sure going to milk it for all it's worth....

Continuing from Part 1 and Part 2 about our visit to Kyoto's Fushimi Inari Shrine (伏見稲荷大社).....

A short climb from the pretty lake mentioned in Part 1, you come, surprisingly, across a couple of small buildings, one a restaurant, straddling the path:

We stopped for a juice, and to chat with the lady. She was 86, and the fourth generation of her family to own/run the little restaurant. The shrine owns the land, but for whatever reason, the family has these buildings. The building across the path was her house; she had been born there.

I found out later, from [...]

Day 4 of my camping trip with Anthony started early, as usual, but without the prospect of having to move the tent (as I did the previous day), I looked forward to a day of fun.

Anthony's new friends had returned home the previous evening, but now he had May and Monet to play with, and added new friends Emma and her older brother, Benjamin, as well.

Kotobikihama beach is large – about a mile long – with several distinct sections. This morning, we headed out to the main part of the beach, which is quite a distance from the [...]

Day two of my camping adventure with Anthony ended pleasantly, with new friends and a nice sunset.

Day 3, however, started much earlier and much less pleasantly than I would have expected – right at midnight – when some rude family burst into the campground with loud voices and bright lights, searching for a spot to set up their tent, then setting it up.

Inconsiderate people suck.

I barely got a few hours of sleep, and was up at 5:30 or so with Anthony and daybreak. Day three was Saturday of Golden Week, meaning that now the crowds would really [...]

Anthony's kindergarten had a field trip yesterday, so the pickup time and location were different from normal, this time near the spot in Kyoto where the Kamo river joins the Takano River to become (oddly enough) a different Kamo River.

He wanted to play more, and his friend Akiko-chan hadn't left yet, so we decided to go down to the river together to play. I didn't have my nice camera with me, but I took a few snaps of the fun with my cell-phone camera.

Akiko-chan's mom and I spent much of the time yelling "nooooo, not in the water!" [...]