The last post was extremely Japanese in nature, so this one will provide a good contrast. Tonight for dinner we went down to the Sausalito Yacht Club for dinner. The place sounds decidedly fancier than it is; dinner was a BBQ out on the deck overlooking San Francisco Bay. It was perfect, though, for precisely that reason.

Genbo looking at the ocean

Me hanging dangerously over railing to get shot of Genbo looking at ocean from ocean's perspective

If this is the Yacht Club, are those the yachts?

Wolfing down obligatory hamburgers and hotdogs

Not at all different from the Japan....really

Looking out towards Alcatraz and San Francisco as the ferry comes in

Interesting boat catching nice light

Priceless expression

Most days it doesn’t matter, except for the ritual greetings to the Shinto gods they perform, but the daycare Genbo and Zoe attend is attached to a major regional shrine, with a history going back to 667 AD to when the area was, briefly, the capital of Japan. The oldest class, however, gets to take part in a yearly ceremony called Miae Matsuri, which is, as close to I can figure, an annual thanksgiving to the gods for the bounty of the harvest, etc. etc.

This festival just happened to fall on the morning of the day we flew back to the States. So, we did the whole ceremony thing, changed really quickly, then hopped on a plane to San Francisco. Which, by the way, is where I’m writing this. So, it doesn’t have the usual custom formatting that I have set up on my home machine.

Genbo was given a place of honor holding a live rooster in a basket, which may or may not have been sacrificed as part of the ceremony we didn’t see. There was one other kid performing the same duty, but he apparently got scared of the thing during practice and had to have someone else take over.

Photo-Op with Mom

Hanging out with friends

Can we go to America now?

Genbo and first friend

The Procession Begins

Up the Stairs

Through the Gate-Portal-Thingy

And Everyone Follows

…To be continued.

I am the proud new owner of a Voigtlander 125 2.5 APO-Lanthar, which is kissing-cousins to my old Zeiss 100/2 Planar Makro, except better. Better because it’s 125 mm instead of 100 (more reach), has native 1:1 macro capability, and is apochromatic and therefore corrects for chromatic and spherical aberations. OK, I’ve just lost 99% of my already-meager readership.

Anyway, I’ve been pleasantly busy with work lately, which means I haven’t been posting, but I just wanted to put up some quick shots with the new lens. These were taken over breakfast this morning. Tomorrow we’re headed for the States for three weeks, so I should be posting from there.

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On our trip to Kobe last Golden Week we went to a little amusement park on top of a mountain, which will be further explored in an upcoming post. Here I just want to share these shots of Genbo because they’re so precious. Because it was Golden Week and the place was packed, there were live shows all day. The two we took in were a clown show and a Shinkenja (Power-Rangers clone) show. These were of course completely boring for me, but I loved watching Genbo’s face go through all sorts of transformations, from gleeful to intent to semi-scared, and then back to gleeful again.

Japanese clownsThey were, I have to admit, pretty good
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If only Genbo concentrated so hard when I try to explain something important…
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Pure, unadultureated joyFunny, he doesn’t look like that when I play shakuhachi
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Next came the Shinkenja, which Genbo picked up a thorough knowledge of despite the fact that we never watch these shows at our house. Here they are using the same sword as the one that he received for his fifth birthday, pictured at the end of this post. (Zoe got scared during this show and had to be taken away by mommy, although that didn’t stop her from stating her preference for the pink one.)

Good defeating evil(as always)
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Literally a nail-biter for Genbo
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Finally, I had to insert one cute shot of Zoe. This one is out in front of the Suma Aquarium.

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Here are some pictures from the beach on our Golden Week trip to Kobe, first described here. This was really Zoe’s first exposure to the ocean as a full running, squealing, laughing human being, so it was fun to watch. And, Genbo was as unconsciously graceful in play as all 5 year olds unleashed on the world should be.

This one definitely captures Zoe’s assertive, indomitable style
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A rare moment of rest
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Run to waves. Run back. Repeat……indefintely
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That exhausted but satisfied look of a parent watching their children playing

“Finally we can relax and let them go crazy”
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Yesterday was Zoe’s birthday. Being Wednesday, Maki had the day off, which was nice. We had thought long and hard as to what to get her for a birthday present, and since she is such a tomboy (being interested primarily in trains, Ultraman, and dinosaurs), we decided to give her a doll. Partly out of curiosity; partly desperation. She took to it well enough, which isn’t surprising considering that she does love babies, but I’m still skeptical as to whether or not it can hold up to brachiosaurus (her current favorite) in the long run.

Anyway, when we woke up she was happy to get the doll, but was much more excited about digging into her birthday cake. As it happens, it had been in the refrigerator since the day before. And, we didn’t have anything really good for breakfast anyway. So we threw all parenting norms out the window and had birthday cake for breakfast. Don’t tell anyone or they’ll take away our Wholesome Parents certificate. That is the reason this post is devoid of picturesque candle-lit images and heavy on the just-got-out-of-bed look. I’m glad I was behind the camera instead of in front of it.

Getting ready to blow out the candles(I think Genbo was saying “Not yet. Wait for mommy”)
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For some reason she wanted a snowman cake
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Her “I’m really happy” pose
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(So cute it defies captioning)
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Genbo in his Sausolito nightshirt
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No petite or polite cake-eating in our house
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For dinner we had ikura over rice (next to birthday cake, her favorite food).

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This past Golden Week (the 5-day or so vacation at the beginning of May), we went down to Suma, which is right near Kobe on the coast. I wasn’t feeling particularly good the day we left (allergies or cold, never figured out which), and I was debating whether or not to take the camera at all. I settled on just taking my small little 35/1.8 lens. I’m pretty happy with this, both because it was light and forced me back into the prime lens way of thinking, in which you have only one focal length to frame your shots and must therefore get a little more creative.

These shots are on the train platform on the way there.

First Zoe…
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Then Genbo…(Looks kind of special there, doesn’t he? )
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Very impressive, honey……but it’s upside-down
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Showing her current age: 2Definitely NOT the ubiquitous annoying Japanese peace sign. They know we don’t do that.
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Her soon-to-be age: 3
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Yes, I have a large-aperture lens, and abuse it at will(Last night I dreamt I bought the new $2,200 24/1.4 Nikkor. A good dream…)
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The other day Jeffrey brought over his new lens, the new version of the “Bigma,” or the Sigma 50-500 OS. We were both surprised at the quality of the images considering it’s a 10x zoom. Here are a couple shots I took (with one, obviously, taken by Jeffrey) when he had it over at my house. (For those interested, he has several excellent posts with lots of samples over at his blog.)

“Dang, that’s one nice new lens you have there”
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Genbo cavorting
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These next two shots show that the lens has pretty nice bokeh (out of focus rendering) for a big 10x telephoto. These are from the little river right outside the door of our house.

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Today was bright if a little chilly, so we went to the nearby park for a little play.

Zoe causing a traffic jam on the curb
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Demonstrating a little attitude
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Time to stick that tongue back in your mouth, Zoe!
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“I didn’t do it, I swear!” (he didn’t)
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Ready for scientific exploration with binoculars and special specimen bag
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Umm, those binoculars are supposed to make things look BIGGER, Genbo
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