The other day after a short stroll through the Chishaku-in Temple in eastern Kyoto, we made our way behind it to search for a set of stairs that Stéphane had suggested. We found it.

At the top of the small set of steps was a park with cherry blossoms and kids playing, beyond which was a large wooden gate building...

Paying a scant 50 yen (US$ 0.60) to pass through, we found the main set of stairs....

Just as we started up, someone came to jog the stairs, reminding me of north-east Kyoto's Tanukitanisan Fudouin Temple where athletes train by [...]

Today I visited eastern Kyoto's Chishaku-in Temple (智積院) with Paul Barr and Nicolas Joannin. I'd driven by its large temple grounds hundreds of times, but had never stopped in, and perhaps couldn't have picked a better day. It was the first short-sleeve day of the year, and the open grounds were dotted with all kinds of blossoming trees...

To be continued...

There were plenty of folks enjoying the blossoms, but it was quiet and relaxed, nothing at all like the ugly, disgusting spectacle you so often find (that I wrote about seven years ago in "The Ugliness of Japanese Cherry-Blossom Viewing"). It wasn't even like "Cherry-Blossom Joie de Vivre in Kyoto". It was just a normal (chilly) Sunday afternoon in the park with kids playing and folks jogging, but with a quiet floral bonus for those who happened by.

Anyway, the photo above is horrible from a photographic sense, but I like the mood.

I was playing catch with Anthony and [...]

Dark buds have been slowly making the cherry-tree branches bumpy, but today they suddenly erupted with color. No blossoms as of yet, but the color is clearly there where yesterday there was none.

The blossoms are quite late this year. Comparing to the my cherry-blossom timelapse from 2007, this year seems to be about five days late.

While I was down taking shots of the buds, an obvious grandpa/grandson pair strolled by, and they just looked so pleasant that I had to snap a shot...

Some random desktop backgrounds in my photo library from the past year. I used these as practice with the new render engine in Lightroom 4, which I like but am not completely used to yet.

Often, a photo here is from some trip or event that I already blogged about; the "nearby photos" link under each image brings you to related posts.