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After picking up my new lens in Roppongi earlier this month, I thought I'd better nourish up before walking around for some big-lens street photography, and had the good fortune to walk into Le Grand Soir. The style was modern urban sophisticated (the chef used to work in Paris), but without any pretense or ostentation.

I had a lightly seasoned breaded chicken leg, and it was without question, by far... utterly in a class by itself... the best piece of chicken I have ever had. Anywhere. (Sorry Mom.)

Really, with food this good, there's no way to calculate “value”, but the whole lunch was a shockingly low 1,000 yen (about US$13). Best. Value. On. The. Planet. I think it's because they just recently opened, and are trying to drum up some word of mouth. It's worked. If I'm anywhere within 100 miles again, I'll treat myself again. It's just that good.

Japanese and English spoken, and I presume French. Le Grand Soir is a minute or two west of Roppongi Station's Exit #2. The map on their site is utterly worthless, so use this one instead. It's in a basement level, so the only presence on the street is their unassuming door, and a menu signboard:

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/1600 sec, f/2.5, ISO 220 — map & image data — nearby photos
Look For This Signboard

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Enter This Door
and descend into culinary heaven

While standing outside the restaurant to figure out how I'd carry the new big lens with all my other stuff, a business man came by and checked out the menu board. I proffered that I'd had the “A” lunch and that it was utterly spectacular, and he smiled and said he'd give it a try, and disappeared behind the door.

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/4000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Mountaintop Silliness
on a hazy Mt. Kannabe, Toyooka City, Hyogo, Japan

Trying to catch up on so much I've fallen behind on recently, this post continues from “A Bit of Summer Volcano Skiing”, from a short trip to northern Hyogo Prefecture at the start of the month. As you can see in the shot above, it was really hazy, but rather than humidity, it was from the kosa “yellow sand” that blows in from China sometimes (As I described in “Misty Evening in Rural Japan”).

After the grass skiing, we thought we'd head up to the top of the short mountain (it rises only about 120m) to see the volcanic crater at the top. We could have walked up in five minutes, but availed ourselves of the ski lift.

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No Seat Belts
it was slightly unnerving to sit on a moving bench without any kind of failsafe

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Heading Up

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Looks Higher than it Is
and it doesn't even look particularly tall

I can recall two appearances of similar shots to the one above on my blog over the years, Miyajima's Mt. Misen, and on Whistler Mountain.

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Volcanic Rock

Upon disembarking, Anthony found a small bit of volcanic rock. When I explained what it was, he was shocked that such a thing wasn't in a scientific laboratory or museum somewhere. I tried to explain further that the entire mountain we were on was nothing but solid volcanic rock, but it didn't quite sink in. He brought the rock home.

The volcano is extinct now, but the thought is that it had been active for many 10s of thousands of years, but about 20,000 years ago, it blew its top in what must have been quite a cataclysmic event, and left the top as a 40m deep crater...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/4000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Approaching the Rim

I wanted to climb down to the bottom, but the grade looked quite difficult, so Fumie and Anthony stayed behind, as I tried to go down at an angle so that it wouldn't feel quite so steep...

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Just Starting Down
a tiny Fumie and Anthony peer over from above

The entire slope was covered with long, dead, exceedingly slippery reeds. Had they been alive it would have been much simpler to walk down, both because they wouldn't have been like ice under foot, and because they could be grasped for support. But as it was, it wasn't long before I was questioning my decision to attempt a descent.

But then Fumie and Anthony found a path, which though pretty rudimentary, was a lot better than what I was doing, so I moved over to it and they joined me.

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On The “Path”

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Half Way Down
these photos completely lack a sense of slope and distance )-:

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Resting at the Bottom

The rocks at the bottom were bigger than those dotting the slopes, but the slopes were indeed rocky under the bed of dead reeds. If there had been no rocks, the slippery reeds and steep slope would have made for more fun than the grass sledding at Blume no Oka.

Anthony wanted to try to climb the slope straight up, rather than return by the relatively-safer path. I didn't think it was a good idea, but figured he'd give up once he saw how steep it really was... but he didn't, and by the time I realized how dangerous a situation we had gotten into, it was too dangerous to try to head back down...

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Up

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The Slope

So long as we kept our feet burrowed under the bed of slippery reeds, and took steps carefully, we'd be okay (and when we had a good foothold, it was easy enough to pause for a photo), but I worried that if he lost his footing, I'd either have to stop him right away, or he'd take out my feet and we'd both slide down (with the unpleasantness of the aforementioned rocks an immediate risk). So, I made sure to keep very close behind him so that he'd not have any space to pick up speed if he slipped.

At one point I looked back to find that Fumie had started up as well... I thought she had gone to take the path. I suggested that she would not like the climb and that she should return to take the path, but it turns out that she, too, had come too far to turn back...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — ¹/3200 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
( I wish I knew how to capture the sense of distance and elevation here )

Amazingly, Anthony reached the top without killing us both, and after a final challenge of a line of brambles at the rim, we were safe.

Fumie followed soon after...

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Cresting the Rim

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Made It!

Even when she was a kid, Fumie was not the sporty type, so the thought of her making a climb like this would have been out of the question until recently, but she's been doing ballet for over 10 years now, extremely earnestly for the last year or so, and is in amazing physical shape. Our high-tech bathroom scale that measures body fat and such spits out a “body age” among all its stats, and while mine thinks my body is a year older than it really is, it says hers is 10 years younger. Amazing.

At the top, dripping with sweat and scratches, we got a nice breeze, and a view of our hotel through some late blossoms...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 116mm — ¹/800 sec, f/6.3, ISO 320 — map & image data — nearby photos
Blue Ridge Hotel

Continued here...

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/1000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Welcome
entrance to the Kiyamachi branch of Hiro yakiniku restaurant, Kyoto Japan

Yesterday we went with Fumie's folks for an early dinner at the Kiyamachi branch of Hiro (京の焼肉処 弘), a small upscale yakiniku restaurant, overlooking Kyoto's Kamogawa river.

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Heading In

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On the Terrace

From April to September, ninety or so restaurants along the river erect terraces over the small side river that parallels the larger Kamo river. It's quite nice if you're there early in the summer (no mosquitoes yet), and early in the evening (smokers haven't arrived yet).

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Looking Over The Railing
layers from bottom to top: stream, stone edging, grass, path, grass

The weather was wonderful and many people were enjoying the recently-relandscaped park between the stream and the river...

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Looking South
toward the Sanjo-Street bridge

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Looking North
toward the Ooike-Street bridge

The dining over the river in this area has a long history going back to the 1600s, though it seems to have made an appearance on my blog only once before (here).

The word to describe this idea is 川床, which might be roughly translated as “river dais”, though strangely the exact same characters are pronounced yuka when referring to it in this situation at the Kamo River, but it's pronounced the more normal kawadoko when referring to the same event a few kilometers north, in Kibune (as seen in this post).

It's also called 納涼床, with the middle character lending an air of breezy coolness to help break a stagnant summer's sweaty grip, but while it truly is cooler to eat directly over the river as seen in the post linked at the end of the prior paragraph, you're far enough away from the river in this Kamo River situation that I don't think it really matters. Still, until the mosquitoes and smokers come, it's quite nice.

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Red, White, and Blue

This area used to be rough cemented cinder block and stones, as seen here and here, and so the relandscaping done over the winter makes it much nicer than before. The couple above is sitting pretty much where Fumie and I came to sit on the first evening we met, 14 years ago. Nice memory.

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Cute Puppy
Photo by Anthony Friedl

Anthony tried to take a picture of the puppy, but ended up getting a nice photo of the couple walking by. Their clothing style is not my cup of tea, but they make for a nice shot.

Fumie's mom had just returned from an overseas trip, so she was the guest of honor.

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Fumie's Mom
my mother-in-law; Anthony's grandma

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Kanpai!
“Cheers”

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First Course

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second course
Beef Sushi
Was really good, melty-in-your-mouth good

Third course was a stupendous amount of exceedingly tasty beef that we cooked ourselves at the table. I was too busy stuffing my face to remember the camera.

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Mildly Annoying Child

The boy was doing his best to pester the family of ducks, but it was like water off a ducks back to them, and they just lazily sauntered away from him, despite his trying to shoot them with a toy puff gun...

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Wait, Come Back...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 220 — map & image data — nearby photos
Evening Crowd Starts to Gather

This has long been an area where the youthful nightlife congregates in the evening, especially just on the other side of the bridge.

You can see a number of people sitting along the river in the shot above. The pair the furthest away also appear in this reverse-angle (from across the river) water-level-monitoring frame, from the Kyoto Prefectural website...

Even this morning after a heavy rain the water rose four or five feet, but from time to time it overflows the whole area, such as in this shot taken at the same time as my “Kyoto Kamo River Flooding” post...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50mm — ¹/320 sec, f/8, ISO 560 — map & image data — nearby photos
Last Year

But last night, the water was down and the area between the stream and the river was dry, and a pleasant mood filled the air...

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 560 — map & image data — nearby photos
Concentrating

I'd like to say that this tussly-haired kid was engrossed in some literary work of high esteem, but alas, he was just playing a game on my iPad.

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Checking Out the River

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Good-Looking Kid
if I do say so myself 🙂

While on the entrance path seen in the first two photos above, you walk by two huge picture windows showing the restaurant's kitchen...

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 @ 14mm — ¹/160 sec, f/7.1, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos

From the taxi on the way home, while crossing the bridge, I tried to get a shot of the terrace we'd just been on, but it proved difficult...

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Terraces Above the River
only the end railing of Hiro's terrace is visible, just right of center

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Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 340mm — ¹/160 sec, f/6.3, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nice Smile. Nice Form. Nice Boots?

Not quite a regulation baseball uniform, but appropriate to the situation. Last month some neighborhood kids were playing catch, with the twist that they were separated by a little river, adding a bit of drama to each throw...

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Good Nab

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This One, Not so Good

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Spring into Action

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Now the Boots Make Sense

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Bobble

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Drew Smiles From Everyone

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Close Call

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Another Kind of Hazard

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Big Brother's Reach

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Going In With the Broom
for extended reach

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Improvising
on his side of the river

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It's not that I don't have enough recent stuff that I'm behind on to post about, but I thought it'd be a nice change of pace to jump back half a year to when the fall foliage first started showing its colors in the area, to a November 9th visit to the Kongourinji Temple (金剛輪寺) in Shiga, an hour's drive from Kyoto. This is the same temple featured in “Deep Sorrow at the Kongourinji Temple's Path of Jizou”, about the many bibbed statues representing children who died before their parents.

The fall colors don't arrive in full force this area until mid to late November, so at this point things were mostly green, as evidence by this shot of the entrance to the temple complex, which somehow has a nice feeling to it...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/250 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Entering the Kongourinji-Temple Complex
Aisho City, Shiga Prefecture, Japan

I guess this post follows on from “On The Way To The Kongourinji Temple's Main Garden”, in that turning the corner mentioned at the bottom of that post reveals...

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Small Tea House
at the edge of the main garden

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First View of the Main Garden

The weather was intermittently gloomy overcast and bright sun, but it seems that the gloomy overcast had reign while I was at the main garden. It also seems that I neglected to get a shot that conveys the overall feeling, which is the three-zone layout common in temple gardens: a temple building with garden-viewing verandas, a water feature with lots of natural stuff (large stones, moss, ferns, etc.), and an opposing hillside of well-manicured vegetation and stonework.

In this case, the “opposing hillside” was the largest I'd ever seen, crested with an absolutely towering pine. I made a 10-shot vertical panorama of it, but the result was boring in and of itself, and in comparison to the magnificence of the actual scene, the understatement of the year, so I just went ahead and deleted it.

I also completely neglected to capture the small lake/river (though a hint can be seen in the “Small Tea House” shot above), so in this next shot you have to imagine that it exists out of sight between the couple and the background...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/640 sec, f/1.4, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Visual Wall
of gardenness

Do you notice the hint of a gazebo up the hill in the upper right of the photo? It's pretty well blended in...

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Garden Gazebo

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Looking Back to the Tea House
with a little bit of the lake actually appearing

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Vertical View
of the far end of the garden

The lighting (or something) really makes all these photos fall monotonously flat in my eyes. I'll have to head back some time with better light (and better skill, and a better plan). It won't be as good the second time, because as you'll see later in this post and in subsequent posts, there's great fun and wonder in walking into this particular temple complex without knowing what you'll find. (If you think you'll visit yourself, you might want to stop reading this series of posts, to preserve the sense of discovery for yourself.)

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Tuft of Grass
and a bit more water

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More “October Sakura”
as described here

Going deeper into the garden/woods, you get a view of the kura, the fireproof (relatively speaking) storage building for valuables....

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Old Kura Treasure House

Kura are seen all over Japan, both at temples and old private houses. They are generally set aside from other buildings so that they're safe even if the dwelling catches on fire. They have very thick walls of mud and straw, and usually have multi-layered doors and windows that close like a bank vault. They're almost always painted white, likely to reflect the sunlight and keep them cool, as they were also used sort of like refrigerators in days past.

This one wasn't painted, and wasn't in good repair at all...

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Seen Better Days

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Front Door

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Missing a Layer or Two

I wouldn't be surprised if this used to be the temple's kura, but that it was now just a gardener's storage hut.

A meandering stream flowed in this area to feed the garden lake, itself being fed by a small waterfall...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 720 — map & image data — nearby photos
Feeding the Stream

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Looking Back
toward the main garden area

The path then winds up around to behind the garden (behind the “opposing hillside”), and you're surrounded by towering trees...

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Beyond the Garden

The woods and path eventually open up to a small clearing of the jizou statues introduced in “Deep Sorrow at the Kongourinji Temple's Path of Jizou”...

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Clearing in the Woods

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the one with the name visible is
For Little Kyoko-chan
( They all had names )

Then you notice that there's another terrace of jizou statues above this one, seen in the background at right in this next photo...

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Just How Many Are There?

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Too Cliché?
( yup )

Then you find yourself at the long path lined with jizou that you first saw from a distance before entering the main garden, and you move up to the next terrace...

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A Second Terrace

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Looking Back Toward the Start of the Path

By this time you've started to realize that there's a lot more than first met the eye, and looking to where the path leads, you don't know what to expect, except more emotions as you think of the children these statues represent, and the parents who placed them...

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The Unknown
the path up the mountain appears to go forever

Continued here...