My best friend from college, Ram Kulkarni, was in Japan for business, and so stopped by to visit in Kyoto this evening. I saw him previously about a year ago in Tokyo, and prior to that was likely about 11 years ago when he was Best Man at my wedding.

Last time he'd been working at a think tank as an advisor to a former prime minister in Finland, but now he has a much more demanding boss: he's started his own company in Bangalore, India.

I brought him up to the real Shogunzuka Overlook, which I actually entered for [...]

Having a kid in elementary school means a new set of hours for the parents, and as part of that I found myself wandering around outside after returning from school. (Parents accompany first graders to school for the first few days; there are no school busses, so the vast majority of kids take the subway or bus, all by themselves, so the parents go for the first few days to ensure they're settled.)

I got off the bus one stop early to walk around the grounds of the municipal museum of art, which is pretty this time of year. (Clicking [...]

Anthony officially started first grade today. Today was just the entrance ceremony; tomorrow, he starts class.

Before heading off, we asked Fumie's mom to take a picture of us in front of the cherry blossoms next to our building.

The sign welcomes us to the elementary-school entrance ceremony. This was at the front gate of the school, which was a common spot to take pictures. The layout of things placed the sun directly into your eyes, so the results were pretty bad all around.

Once inside, the Anthony switched to his inside shoes (and we switched to slippers that we'd [...]

Today was a wonderful day in Kyoto... warmer than it's been lately, and sunny. And with spring break over and kids heading back to school, it wasn't crowded in our area. The cherry blossoms are almost at their peak, so today was perhaps one of the nicest days of the year in one of the nicest areas of Kyoto (which is one of the nicest cities in Japan).

So, of course, we left, and spent the day elsewhere.

The cherry blossoms seen above were on a tree next to the parking lot of where we had dinner, more than a [...]

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 [...]