This alleyway leading to a fine Kyoto dining establishment is quintessentially Kyoto. Or, rather, is the image the Kyoto often seeks to brand itself with, even though alleyways like this are actually fairly rare. Either way, it’s nice.

They were doing some construction on the bark-covered walls as I went to the camera store, and by the time I passed by on the way back with my new lens they were done.

“Brand-spanking new, but built to look old”
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“Open for business”
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I like the wood used on this post, although I have no idea how they got it to look that way.

Extremely well-trained termites?
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Today I took in my venerable Nikon 16-85 3.5-5.6 VR and traded it in (I repeat, Maki: TRADE-IN) for a Tamron 17-50 2.8 VC. In other words, I lost the “Nikon” label and some reach on the telephoto end for the ability to take better photos in poor light and create nice bokeh. A good trade-off, in my opinion. Here I’m taking advantage of the 2.8 aperture to create some nice bokeh I never could have with the Nikon. At 50 mm the Nikon was an unbearably slow f5, so all that stuff behind the statue, such as the tree and the woman with the red umbrella (had to wait while for a colorful umbrella to pass) would have been boringly in focus.

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I have a friend here named Stephane, a French guy who who is a fellow Nikon owner and photo enthusiast. He takes great pictures, often processing them heavily so that, paradoxically, only the “essense” remains. I’m giving a very small-scale shakuhachi concert this Sunday at his house, and when I was there a few days ago to talk about it he snapped some shots of me preparing.

Stephane really likes the long flute, so I’ve prepared a couple songs for the occasion
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Me with the long flute by the window
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It’s so hard to keep a two year-old still. And, when she’s sleeping it’s usually in a dark room. Today, however, for some reason she didn’t take a nap at daycare, and hence fell asleep in my arms 30 seconds after coming home (about 10 seconds after insisting she wasn’t tired). After laying her down on the couch I brought out my tripod and a macro to take some still lifes.

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Last night the kids went to bed relatively early after a day of play and Maki had the night shift, so I stayed up and fooled around taking pictures, first from my balcony and then from my preferred studio (the kitchen table).

Lower part of lake Biwa
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On the other side of that hill lies Kyoto
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Everyone liked this shot of Zoe, so here is a blown-up version.

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Intensity
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Just screwing around in Lightroom, actually figuring out how to use some of its best functionality, like the adjustment brush. Obviously very heavy-handed here, but I think the effect matches the guy’s expression.

As I explained in the previous post, Maki and I used to go to hotspring overnights in Kyushu a lot when we lived there. These places invariably only had 10-20 rooms, although with excellent service and food. I would be hesitant to take a 2 and a 5 year old to such a place, however. So, for this excursion, our first such overnight since Genbo was born, we chose a larger hotel. The onsen, Keburikawa in Kameoka, was in fact bigger and more institutional than both of us expected. At first I was a little disappointed by this, but our room was still excellent, and the size of the place meant that we didn’t have to keep Genbo and Zoe on such a tight leash (reducing stress). I was extremely glad that we decided at the last minute to spring for the room with its own outside bath; it really made the trip for us.

Here’s the balcony off our room, with its private bath made of shigaraki pottery. In Japanese it’s called a rotenburo, which Genbo still thinks is an English word because he learned it at a friend’s house in the States where there is an outside hot-tub. It’s hilarious to hear him pronounce this very Japanese word with an American accent.

“Roten-buuurrow”
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Here’s our room shot from outside on the balcony. Very nice and spacious.

“Japanese modern” was the style of the decor
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Wearing yukata, or simple kimono, is one of the pleasures of any onsen. Here is Zoe in hers, while Genbo waits in his skivies for his larger size to be delivered (he is, to put it mildly, taller than most Japanese 5-year olds). I particularly cherish this picture because Zoe, being a little bit more reserved than her brother, doesn’t often give the camera her full-wattage smile.

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Much frolicking was had…

Where’s Zoe’s head?
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…and jumping too and fro…

I used to do the same exact thing in hotels, I remember.
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Finally, Genbo’s yukata arrives.

Reporting for silliness, Sir!
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Onsen exist just as much for the food as the baths, and the fact that you pay by the person instead of by the room attests to where much of your money goes. Although at smaller onsen you usually eat in your room, here there was a restaurant, where everybody was knocking back beer and sake in their yukatas. You had a choice of three different meals, and we chose the wild boar, which is apparently a local specialty.

So glad I’m not a vegetarian
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Before dinner we had gone to the large public (gender-divided) baths, but after dinner we filled our own private one. It was raining outside, which just added to the atmosphere.

Just big enough for two large and two small
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It was a long day for Zoe, who curled up in her favorite place before bed and didn’t even have the energy to bat my camera away or shield her face.

Comfy
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