{"id":399,"date":"2007-03-23T00:47:45","date_gmt":"2007-03-22T15:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-03-23\/399"},"modified":"2007-03-23T00:47:45","modified_gmt":"2007-03-22T15:47:45","slug":"funky-icicles-and-snowy-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-03-23\/399","title":{"rendered":"Funky Icicles and Snowy Mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

The other day, we went for an impromptu drive up into the northern\nmountains, although phrasing it that way perhaps makes it sound sounds like\nmore of an adventure than it is. Kyoto is in a valley<\/span> surrounded on three\nsides by mountains. You can be<\/span> in a populated<\/span> area of the city that gets\nvirtually no snow for years, but a fifteen<\/span>-minute drive puts you into what\nseems to be the middle of nowhere, where snows are measured by the meter.<\/p>\n\n

Of course, there's not much snow left anymore, particularly after such a\nmild<\/span> winter, but we were pleasantly surprised to find that there was some. We were on<\/span> a small<\/span> road winding up a mountain<\/span> and came across a turnaround<\/span>\nwith a little<\/span> wooden shrine \/ rest stop, so we stopped to play a bit.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the back end of the shrine's roof, the snow had slowly<\/i> been\nsliding off, and the projecting snow and long tendrils of ice sagged, and\ntook on a curve<\/span> under their own weight, thereby forming something that\nlooked like a long<\/span> row of frozen ram's horns. Sadly, I didn't<\/span> have my\ncamera, but I did<\/span> borrow Fumie's phone with which to take a tiny<\/span>\npicture.<\/p>\n\n

Later, Fumie was standing some distance away with the camera phone, so I\nstarted<\/span> lobbing snowballs at her. After a few<\/span> warm-up throws, I had surprisingly<\/span> good aim. I wasn't<\/span> throwing hard, so she could easily lean out\nof the way, but it was silly fun and she tried to take a picture<\/span> of a\nsnowball<\/span> coming at her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n

\n\nUnfortunately, during the midst of this, she spent one moment concentrating\njust a bit<\/span> too much on the picture and neglected to bob, and got positively\nplastered directly in the nose. (I did<\/span> say that I was<\/span> having\nexcellent<\/i> aim.)\n\n<\/p>

\n\nI say “unfortunately” because she's my wife and decorum\ndictates that I say<\/span> that, but it was really<\/i> funny. Imagine my shock,\ntotally expecting her to deftly bob out of the way as she had numerous\ntimes, when her face suddenly disappeared behind an expanding cloud of wet,\nslushy snow, the product of a slushball<\/span> absolutely obliterating itself upon\nher nose.<\/p>\n\n

Her first thought, after the initial shock, was to lament that she\nhadn't even gotten the picture. Her next thought<\/span> was to remove the snow\nembedded in her nostrils.<\/p>\n\n

After hugging her and apologizing profusely, we couldn't stop laughing\nas I helped<\/span> her get the snow out of her face, hair, clothes, and even\nboots. We also took<\/span> pains to make sure Anthony knew that I hadn't<\/span> intended\nto hit her, much less hit her in the face. Considering that we didn't stop\nlaughing for 10 minutes, I don't<\/span> know how seriously he took us.<\/p>\n\n

I really wanted to get a good picture of that funky curving snow, so the\nnext day while Fumie was in Osaka on some preparations for a trip<\/span> to\nMalaysia (mimicking our trip\nto Malaysia<\/a> last year), Anthony, Fumie's mom, and I took<\/span> another drive\nup into the mountains. Sadly, it was much warmer and the snow had mostly\nmelted.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 52mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f\/2.8, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>Not Much Left<\/span><\/div>\n\n

All the freaky ice and most of the oddly curved snow was gone. Oh well, we could still play in the snow on the ground.....<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 31mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>640 sec, f\/2.8, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>Taking Aim<\/span><\/div>\n\n
<\/a>Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 31mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>640 sec, f\/2.8, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>Launch<\/span><\/div>\n\n
<\/a>Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 31mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>250 sec, f\/2.8, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>Happy with the Results<\/span><\/div>\n\n
<\/a>Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 44mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>160 sec, f\/2.8, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>Obaachan Laughing at Her Poor Throwing<\/span><\/div>\n\n
<\/a>Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 26mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f\/2.8, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>Anthony Teaching: “You need a wide<\/span> stance like this, then....”<\/span><\/div>\n\n
<\/a>Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 18mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>160 sec, f\/9, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>Looking Up: Very Tall and Very Straight Trees<\/span><\/div>\n\n

Throughout the rest of our drive, we saw a lot<\/span> more snow and a lot<\/span> of\npretty scenes, half of which involved snow and the other half involving\nplum blossoms.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day, we went for an impromptu drive up into the northern mountains, although phrasing it that way perhaps makes it sound sounds like more of an adventure than it is. Kyoto is in a valley surrounded on three sides by mountains. You can be in a populated area of the city that gets virtually no snow for years, but a fifteen-minute drive puts you into what seems to be the middle of nowhere, where snows are measured by the meter.<\/p>

Of course, there's not much snow left anymore, particularly after such a mild winter, but we were pleasantly [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}