Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 280 — map & image data — nearby photos
Scene of the Discovery
entrance to the Rurikou-in Temple (瑠璃光院), Kyoto Japan
Nov 2012
More from the archives as I wade through my photo library, this time a gross discovery in November 2012. On our way into the Rurikou-in Temple (瑠璃光院) in Kyoto, Damien and I discovered a weird wire-like “thing” twisting and withering energetically on the steps.
Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Thin and Wirelike
curling/uncurling haphazardly, almost violently
めちゃイヤ！ハリガネムシです。
Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Shoe for Scale
I had never seen anything like it. My first thought was that it was a piece of wire that was caught by the wind or something, but it quickly became apparent that it was alive. It was too thin and hard to be any kind of worm I'd ever heard of, so I was dumbfounded.
It caught the attention of an old man going by, and he said that when he was a kid, these things would emerge from praying mantises. It was some kind of parasite. They'd see a praying mantis acting strangely, he said, and dip it in water and voila, the worm-like thing would emerge from the insect's rear end.
Yuuuuuck!
With this disquieting thought in mind, we left the worm-like organism to itself and continued up the steps, when lo and behold a few steps later we came to the body of a dazed mantis...
Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 7200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Discarded Host
つかれられた生息地
Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Old Man Shows Us
where the wire/worm thing had emerged from
I did some investigation on the web, and this is more disgusting than I could have imagined.
The worm/wire thing is called a horsehair worm (the Japanese translates to “wire bug”), and they are the stuff nightmares are made of.
It turns out that the microscopic larva of the thing was drunk by some insect, which was then eaten by the mantis. That's how the larve gets into the mantis' gut. The larva then grows big enough to bore out of the gut and into the body cavity, and grows there into adulthood (inside the mantis, eventually filling its entire body cavity; it ends up being several times longer than the host). When it's ready to emerge, it wants to do so in water, so it somehow alters the mantis' brain to make it seek water like a thirst-crazed zombie. The mantis normally drowns itself in the process, at which point the worm-thing crawls out to go live its happy life, make (microscopic) babies, and start the cycle all over again.
Not for the faint of heart, but this video explains it in short, and there are many videos showing them in action (in English and in Japanese).
ハリガネムシのは聞いた事無かった。面白いですが、かなりいやです。ビデオはこちらです。
Gross. Just gross.
This mantis was not near the water, so maybe it was dying and the worm decided to bail early. I dunno. Yuck.
And so to not end on that thought, here is a quick look at the wonderful moss just inside the entrance to the temple...
Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/160 sec, f/10, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Big Stupid Dummy
me, after a personal-best fastest hike to the top of Mt. Hiei
馬鹿の私、比叡山の山頂で。早く出来ましたけれども、途中で右足首をねんざしました。
I made my sixth hike to the top of Kyoto's Mt. Hiei yesterday, with the goal being simply: fast I could get to the top? I really enjoyed last week's hike with Damien, because he's fun to chat with and it's enjoyable to hike with friends, but it left me wondering how fast I could do on my own, if I concentrated only on getting to the top quickly. No stopping for photography, no stopping for rests, no stopping for energy snacks, no stopping to chat with other hikers. No stopping to enjoy nature. Just go. Fast.
To recap my history here, my first hike 2½ years ago was a glorious failure, recounted in the appropriately-titled “The Agony Where Bravado Yields, In Spectacular Fashion, To Painful Reality”. I hadn't realized just how out of shape I had been, so it's that hike that spurred me to get in shape. I think I've done pretty well, and now, at 48, I'm in the best shape of my life.
On that first hike 2½ years ago, pushed by the unrelenting pace of my in-shape hiking partner, the trip from the small shrine near the trailhead to the small clearing about half way up took 48 minutes. Yesterday it took 41.
Seven minutes faster is nice, but it's an underwhelming improvement for 2½ years of work. However, I was in much better shape for the rest of the hike to come, and forewent the 10-minute rest stop here (and other rest stops I'd needed that first time), and continued past without pause to the meaty part of the hike.
I made good time to the scenic end of the hike proper. (I consider “the hike proper” to be from the shrine near the trailhead to this scenic rest spot.)
The hike proper took 127 minutes (2h 7m) the first time, but only 82 minutes (1h 22m) yesterday, an improvement of 45 minutes.
二年前の第一回の比叡山ハイキングは２時間７分間かかった。今回(第５回目)には１時間２２分間かかりました。
That's a great improvement, but the real achievement is in the surrounding context. That first time it had taken 181 minutes (3h 1m) to reach this point by foot after leaving my house, and by the time I got here I was almost comatose with thorough fatigue. This time that same trip took only 111 minutes (1h 51m), and yet I felt great. In fact, I didn't even break stride as I passed the end of the “hike proper” to continue the short distance to the bus stop at the summit.
From front door to summit: 116 minutes (1h 56m). That's a lot better than the first time I hiked to the summit (my second Mt. Hiei hike), where with ample stops it took more than five hours.)
One key in going fast was not stopping. During yesterday's hike, between my front door and the summit, I stopped moving only three times. One was for a red light early on at an intersection in the city on the way to the trailhead. One was at the 90-minute mark where I stopped for a few minutes for a drink, in hopes that it would rejuvenate the tiredness that had sunk in. (Answer: it didn't, so it was just a wasted three minutes.)
And at 21 minutes into the hike proper, I twisted my ankle while running on a down-slope portion of the trail. One moment I was running with the grace of a gazelle floating on the wind, and the next I was hitting the ground like a sack of rocks unceremoniously shoved off the back of the Stupid Truck. At that moment, withering in pain, I decided it was time to take a short rest.
Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/60 sec, f/3.3, ISO 320 — image data
Forced Rest
taking a survey for broken bones
(the photo was to mark my location, but my stupid Garmin GPS unit failed to keep the track)
ねんざをした時に。痛かった。その後のハイキングは１時間以上かかりました。
To offer a bit of background, recall that on my 3rd Mt. Hiei hike four months ago, I'd actually hiked back down the mountain instead of taking the train or bus I'd taken other times. Hiking downhill has always been really hard on my knees, but it turned out that the biggest danger was that I kept twisting my ankle. After half a dozen small twists (each resulting in a painful crash to the ground, and much swearing and worrying about broken bones), you'd think I'd figure out how to walk properly, but no matter how careful I was, it would still happen over and over.
So yesterday, on the way up, when I encountered a section of the trail with a downhill slope, I'd pick up the pace to a fast jog, but was extremely mindful of my propensity to twist my ankle. I was very careful.
In particular, when I approached a particularly rough area, my active thought was “be extra careful here”, and with that thought forefront in mind, I suddenly, inexplicably, found myself crashing to the ground with great force. I peppered the palm of my left hand with holes from rocks or roots or whatnot, and did the same to my left knee (and my new Under Armour compression leggings).
The only two reasons I can imagine for twisting my ankle despite such attention is that either I'm blind or stupid.
I'm not blind.
Peppering my body with painful holes is one thing, but it's my right ankle that got most attention. Oh, and as a data point for health-care researchers: cursing loudly in English in a Japanese forest does not seem to mitigate the damage from a sprain.
After a few minutes, I stood up to gingerly give it a try. I still had more than an hour of hiking to the top, so if my ankle was too bad to continue, I could hobble back to the trailhead which, conveniently, is off the parking lot of one of Kyoto's best hospitals, so I'd be able to get immediate treatment. But it wasn't that bad, and I continued on. It didn't exactly hurt, but it remained noticeable longer than before. For a half hour it felt “hinky” (for lack of a better word), but it seemed to have worked itself out by the time I reached the summit.
Until I stood up after a few minutes' rest. It was bothering me again. An hour's bus ride back down and a short walk home, and I took off my socks to reveal that I'd done some real damage.
Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/40 sec, f/3.3, ISO 400 — image data
Justice Served
if you are stupid in how you hike, you get troubles like this
I'd been planning to do a couple of fairly active classes at the gym, but I bailed on those and just did some upper-body weight training. In the evening, I treated the swelling with copious amounts of jasmine plum wine and baked chicken at Uroko, with Damien.
Today it's starting to turn pretty colors, and is very stiff. If I hobble carefully, I can get around without pain, so the sprain is mild by most standards.
So a few days after trumpeting being back in the saddle health wise, I'm back to limited activity. I went swimming for a while this evening with Anthony, and that went fine, so I hope that bodes well for a quick recovery.
My next goal for a Mt. Hiei hike is to do it quickly and not stupidly.
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/30 sec, f/14, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Throwaway Shot
just slightly embellished
Nov 2013, at the Sento Imperial Palace (仙洞御所), Kyoto Japan
When I visited my photo library to continue where I left off in last week's “An Autumn Visit to the Sento Imperial Palace in Kyoto”, I came across a highly-overexposed bridge shot similar to the one that I did post.
Though shooting raw affords me generous latitude to recover from exposure mistakes, overexposure at some point washes out color to pure white, from which there is no recovery. It was severely overexposed (not by mistake, actually, but as part of a bracketed-exposure sequence) so I was about to delete it from my photo archive, but first thought to give it the “Funky Joy” treatment in Lightroom. I liked the result.
It's garish and fake, so I'm sure it's not to everyone's taste, but then again, not much is.
And while I'm at it, in the vein of “How Many Faces Can One Portrait Have?” and (from 7.5 years ago) “From Sunset to Moonrise with Adobe Lightroom”, here's one more view from the same original:
Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/8 sec, f/3.3, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Heading Up Mt. Hiei
with Damien Douxchamps, but without a good camera
昨日、友達と一緒に比叡山を登った。小さいゴミのカメラしか無かったので、今回の写真はかなり質が悪いです。ごめん。
The past few months have conspired to keep me mostly inactive, with travel, injuries, and colds weighing me down for most of the summer, but I'm finally feeling pretty good, so when I came across some photos of a previous hike up Kyoto's Mt. Hiei while tidying up my photo archive, I thought it was about time to try it again, so the next morning I did it.
Luck would have it that Damien was available to give it a try, so we met at the trailhead yesterday morning at 8:00.
This was my fifth hike of the mountain. I brought a full-frame SLR the first, second, and third times. On the fourth I just brought the iPhone, but because the camera lacks quality (and the battery lacks endurance) I thought maybe I'd get a step up with a small compact camera we have lying around, but wow was I wrong. The photo quality is just pathetic. So sorry about that.
Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/10 sec, f/3.3, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Muddy
you walk along/in a stream for just the first few minutes
Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/60 sec, f/3.3, ISO 320 — map & image data — nearby photos
“Feeling Great!”
he was actually a bit tired
Damien has had his head buried in a startup business for almost the last year, so hasn't gotten out for much exercise, so this was a sudden challenge for him. Still, he did much better than I did my first time.
Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/15 sec, f/3.3, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
More Water than Normal
Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/1000 sec, f/3.3, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
So Stylish at the Top!
with bonus crazy hat hair
My clothes are all about function.
The leggings and shirt are from Under Armour's “Heat Gear” compression line (which I've written about in the past here and here). They're designed to be worn when it's hot, to wick away sweat and keep you cool. They do a fantastic job of it.
These versions are of the “compression” type, which means the stretchy fabric wears like a second skin. They have non-compression versions that apparently wick just as well, but I like the compression aspect because it makes you feel more comfortable; it eliminates the sticky/clingy/yucky feeling of a wet shirt. It's just always there, so you don't feel any wet “cling”, and you also don't feel sweat dripping down your back/arms/whatever. It's really just so much more comfortable than a non-compression shirt such as the Uniqlo “Dry” T that I wrote about a couple of years ago. I still wear those when I'm not exercising, but they're comparatively horrible for exercise.
I could get white and navy colors at Amazon Japan, but to add some variety to my workouts while in The States this summer I picked up orange, bright blue (to match my eyes, you know), and just to be odd, purple.
A side note about the company that makes these, Under Armour...
When I first gave them a try I noticed the really high quality of their product right away, a feeling that has only strengthened over the months as I've tried more products. But on top of that, while in The States for the summer, over the course of many visits to a trampoline park, I noticed that Under Armour was the predominant brand that the kids were wearing. Not Nike, not Adidas, not Umbro, not New Balance, not Champion. Five year olds, 10 year olds, 15-year olds (and adults).
These kids are already voting with their parents' money, and will soon vote with their own. Under Armour, it seems, is “cool” with the young generation, and I think this bodes very well for Under Armour's future because one's idea of style sticks with us as we age.
(When I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, a red sweater vest was the epitome of “old” and “grandpa”, because back then, that's what old men wore. They wore it because they thought it looked good, because when they were kids in the 40s and 50s, it did look good. Back then, a red sweater vest was the epitome of preppy cool, and that fashion sense stuck with the men even though it didn't stick with the general culture.)
This certainly wasn't the limit of my research, but I ended up buying a few shares of Under Armour stock. With a market cap of $15B it's quite risky... that's 1/5th the market cap of Nike, but the company doesn't “feel” like it has nearly that much presence, so it's got to grow into its pricing. In most trailing comparisons to Nike it seems overpriced, but it's smaller and has more momentum, so those expectations are built into the current price. On Wall Street, “expectations” can be quite fickle, so it wouldn't surprise me to see this stock level out for a year or two at half its current price, but it also wouldn't surprise me to see it much higher five and ten years out.
We'll see. I'm in at $69.61/share.
僕が好きな運動用の服のメーカーはアンダーアーマーです。 値段は一寸高いけれども、質が最高です。ジムでは結構人気ですが、この間アメリカで気が付くのはこのブランドは若者にかなり 人気です。品質がよい＋人気はいい組み合わせので、会社の株を一寸買いました。将来はどうかな〜？
Anyway, back to yesterday's climb. Because it was Damien's first time, I let him set the pace, and we made it in 2h 18m. That about what it took on my first time (2h 8m), but Damien was in much better shape at the end than I had been. For example, he can stand:
Panasonic DMC-TS3 at an effective 29mm — 1/100 sec, f/3.3, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Not So Much Worse for Wear
I'll have to try again by myself sometime soon, to see if I can beat the 1h 37m time of the previous hike. But it's so painful to do it with a crappy camera, I'll have to give some thought into what to do there.
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1250 — image data
Keeping a Weary Eye on Things
京都の田舎にある無縁仏に
A followup of sorts to a four-year-old post about a dumping ground in Kyoto for no-longer-sponsored temple monuments. Wandering through my photo archive, I came across this set and thought to post a few more from that outing...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/16, ISO 6400 — image data
Paul and a Packed Field of Monuments
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — 1/640 sec, f/1.4, ISO 200 — image data
Plausible Guess
I can guess why the headless figurine found its way here
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — 1/160 sec, f/7.1, ISO 800 — image data
As Far As The Eye Can See
sort of
There's a certain sadness about the whole place, but this kind of monument, of a history written in stone discarded halfway through, seems particularly forlorn. It chronicles deaths starting in 1919 with a 2-year-old girl, and ends in 83 years later 2002 with (I think) her sister-in-law (of sorts).
I'm probably totally misunderstand what I think I'm seeing, but it looks like the last entry in 2002 is for the 84-year-old third wife of the 2nd-to-last entry, a man who died at 82 in 1987. The entry prior to that is 42 years earlier, in 1945, of the man's oldest son who died at the age of 2, a month after the man's second wife had died at age 30. His first wife died at 23, thirteen years earlier in 1932. The first and second wives were sisters. The first two entries (1919 and 1929) were additional sisters who passed at 2 and 19. A fifth sister clearly exists, born between 1916-1918 (and so about the same age as the third wife), but doesn't seem to be referenced anywhere. Anyway, I'm guessing that the third wife had prepaid for her data to be entered, but no one paid the annual maintenance fees after that, so eventually the stone was removed to this area.
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/16, ISO 6400 — image data
Also Sad
two miscarriages, but the blanks are not filled in on the dates (which is odd)
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1000 — image data
Indistinguishable From a Rock
some were worn down a lot
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/8, ISO 2200 — image data
Different Neighborhoods
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 640 — image data
Our Security Guard
from the first photo