Here are some more shots from the outing up to Shogunzuka that I posted about last weekend....

Inside, a plaque describing the area...

Looking a bit toward the left...

While back at the park overlook....

But...

Okay, that's not really what the guy pointing was saying... or maybe it was, I dunno, I was 100 feet away.

Kyoto Tower, is, of course, the big bright spire left of center. Although it's not that pretty, it's tall and easy to see, so it's made cameo appearances in my blog several times, including from close up, from the same spot as today's pictures (Shogunuzkua), from far away, and from very far away.

I had a few spare minutes this evening, so I drove up to Shogunzuka (where Anthony and I watched a helicopter take off the other day). [...]

Last night we a short but intense snow flurry that dropped about 2" of snow in 15 minutes, leaving the mountains this morning with a nice frosting.

The building seen above is at Shogunzuka, covered in "Inside the “New” Temple Building at Shogunzuka Overlooking Kyoto" and, more widely, a bit earlier in "New Views of Kyoto from Shogunzuka’s New Observation Deck".

A bit farther north, hikers were enjoying the clearing on Mt. Daimonji:

The clearing is where the fires are lit during the Daimonji Festival each August, as covered in "Daimonji: Kyoto’s Least-Photogenic Festival", and in its photographic rebuttal "Daimonji [...]

It took a casual spin around Kyoto last weekend, as the cherry blossoms were starting to come in.

Looking down the street from next to the construction, toward the right, it was a mad house:

So, instead I went up the steep road that goes under the shrine arch seen two photos above.

Not long past the shrine gate, I noticed a huge statue off to the side, and wondered how long it had been there and how I had never noticed it before:

It turns out that it's been there since 1955, and is 24m (80') tall. I guess [...]

先週なんとなく国道367号線と国道162号線のゼンセンを乗るのは面白いかもと思いました。 普通はサイクリングすろと国道を抜きたいですが、今回ワザトこの国道の全線を乗る。京都市内の五条烏丸で始まる国道367号線を乗って北へ。 そして、日本海の近くの福井県三方で始まる国道162号線で南へ。 結局225キロをゆったり走りました。京都市周辺以外には道は良かった。車は少なかった。

Last week I got it into my head to do a "theme" bicycle ride: ride the length of National Routes 367 and 162. The total of both is about 183km (114mi), but with the transition between and bits before and after, the ride (see at Strava) ended up being 225km (140mi).

Both routes have endpoints in Kyoto, and many fun rides include parts of them, but in most cases the national routes are used begrudgingly as a quick way to get to the fun part of the ride. The ride is fun despite the parts on [...]