Horse-racing is big in Japan, much more popular than it is in America. This weekend we went down to the horse-racing track in Yodo (south of Kyoto) with our friends the Kamadas. I had never been before, and was surprised at how family-friendly the whole place was. There was a big area where you could picnic while watching the horses, and both ponies and a playground for the kids. It was somewhat like big park that just happened to have horses thundering past every half-hour or so. The only iffiness visible was inside near the betting booths, such as a few people whom I wanted to admonish not to bet the last of their welfare checks.

Genbo playing with Masashi
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I like this picture of Maki and Kamada-san
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Zoe’s turn to roll down the hill. By pure coincidence she had received these second-hand cowboy boots from a cousin just a couple days before.

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Entranced by the spectacle
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Everyone watching the race
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Awww…..
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It was interesting to me that Genbo felt compelled to pick (seemingly at random) some horse to root for. Acculturation or the Y-chromosome acting up?

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Much more impressive in person than on the screen
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Stopping to look dashing on the slide
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Don’t worry, he’s scheduled for a haircut this Tuesday at 4
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Kamada-san fixing Genbo’s bird
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Ikuko-chan arrives
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Stuffing our faces with yummy o-nigiri
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“Daddy, how could you be so silly?”
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Ikuko watching with the kids
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This is the “paddock” area, where the horses are displayed before the race. The guys under the immaculately manicured tree in the middle film the horses going around in a circle for the TV broadcast.

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Watching the ponies, waiting for her turn…
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But never above hamming it up. This is her new face this month.
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Surprisingly, the line for the ponies was not that long. We went on Saturday, but apparently it’s much more crowded on Sunday.

Having fun riding “Black Pit”
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Thank god for those cowboy boots!
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This is her second turn
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Finally Genbo gets in on the action
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Today was the first, really nice day of spring-summer-short-sleeves weather. It was also the first day that I felt half-way OK after the flu that knocked me out for most of the week. And, finally, it was the day after my Voigtlander 125/2.5 came back from being repaired and adjusted. I didn’t feel all that great, and I didn’t have much time because of Genbo’s half-day at school anyway, so I kept my wanderings close to nearby Yamashina station.

There was still plenty of photographic interest, though. The neighborhood isn’t exactly poor, but it’s far from affluent. So, it’s practically oozing with what the Japanese call aji (“flavor”), which implies something akin to “character,” “interest,” or “depth.”

Here’s the front side of someone’s house.

Aji galore…
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Someone’s second-floor veranda

Perhaps too much aji
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This door practically oozes aji. The texture of the rust and the concrete contrasting against each other, and with the trees standing guard on either side…

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I have always been intrigued by (OK, incessantly aggravated by) the Japanese predilection for making everything annoyingly cute. I often wonder what the sociological roots of this pathology are. We could carbon date this sign for a minimum age for the trend.

“Don’t park here, please“
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“Whitewash me out of my creepy misery, please“
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I took this as a throwaway shot, but it’s interesting because of the colors. The top of the train just happens to nearly exactly match the sky, while the bottom of the train just happens to nearly exactly match the train tracks. (It also tells me that I really need to clean my sensor.)

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If you click on this last photo, you can see that this woman is sporting some pretty serious in-ear headphones.

“Whatcha listenin’ to, grandma?”*
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*Calling old women “grandma” is not rude in Japan!

Yesterday was the day that Zoe had waited for the longest in her short 4-year-old life, her ballet recital. She’s only been doing ballet for about 4 months, but she took to it like a natural. She goes to one of the major ballet schools in Kyoto, and this was their big yearly performance for everyone from pre-schoolers (Zoe) up to junior high. It was Sleeping Beauty. We were forbidden to take photos or videos of the actual performance so that we would have to buy overpriced, under-quality shots and DVDs taken by professionals, but they foolishly told us that we could take photos during rehearsals, which took place on the morning of the performance. There were about 5 moms with cell phone cameras and little ol’ me, with full Nikon regalia. My shots will end up being much better than the pro’s, because I moved around close to the stage and got good angles, and concentrated on getting photos of both Zoe and her classmates as opposed to the stars of the show.

Here are shots from Act 1. More later from Act 3 later.

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Zoe has only been doing ballet for a few months, but it has already become a huge part of her life. She’s perpetually dancing, it seems, and whenever there’s any music, anywhere, she’ll start. Her ballet school has a big performance of Sleeping Beauty in a couple weeks, and they’ve been having lots of special rehearsals to get ready for it. Today they were practicing in their costumes, so I took the opportunity to snap some shots.

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Today was Zoe’s 発表会 at daycare, or, for want of a better translation, a mini concert and recital. They did some mini-skits, they did some singing. It was all tremendously cute and I filmed the whole thing. Genbo was forced to tag along, and today just happened to be a rare day with plenty of snow around here, something he’s been waiting all winter for. So, he stayed out in the daycare yard and played for a couple hours with his old friends, totally impervious to the cold. At least until it was time to go home, at which point he decided he was freezing and had to be carried down to the car because his feet couldn’t stand to be in snow-clogged shoes for one more moment.

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The daycare is part of a huge shrine, of which this is one of the main gates.

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And…Here come Maki and Zoe, radiant after her singing and acting glory. Maki is carrying the tripod because I was forced to carry a barefoot Genbo. We came home, put some new clothes on Genbo, watched the video I had just taken, and then went out for ramen.

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I found a nice, hardly-used Nikon 24/1.4 AF-S lens on the street on the way to Kyoto, so I decided to pick it up and take it on my daily constitutional.

This is a throwaway shot from my station that I ended up liking somehow. There’s something about the balance between the three people coming up the stairs, the converging lines of the tracks, and the big wall that I like.

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This is the Higashi Honganji temple, right outside of Kyoto station. It’s been under construction/refurbishment for years, and it still has years to go, I think. Whenever I walk by it, which is frequently on these walks, I think about how intentionally oppressive it is. There’s nothing particularly pretty or aesthetically pleasing about it; it’s just a raw statement of political power, which various Buddhist sects wielded lots of back in the day.

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This car is red
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This next photo is taken from a comfy-seat inside a Starbucks. I’ve walked past this particular Starbucks for years without realizing that it abuts this ancient temple (Rokkakudo), which it reveals with a huge wall of glass. The other day I went into it just by accident, looking for the closest hit of espresso I could find, and was incredibly pleasantly surprised. It looks so unassuming from the outside that it is always almost empty, making it about as perfect a cafe that a huge soulless chain can be.

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This is the rear side of some store…I didn’t even bother looking at the front. I love these traditional external walls, fire-treated to make them weather-resistant.

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More walls. This time I liked the convergence of the three different textures.

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And, finally…guy with clicker waiting for his garage door to close. There was something about his face I liked; everybody gets an expression, while waiting just a few seconds for something, when they completely enter their own little world for just a moment, that I think is almost endearing.

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I’ve been wanting to take some close-ups of eyes for the next meeting of my photography group, and foolishly thought that maybe I could get my kids to cooperate. This first photo here happened basically by chance, but none of the others were what I was aiming for. So much for getting my kids to hold still. Still I took the opportunity to grab some nice photos of everybody. Here I used a plugin called Silver Effects Pro for the B&W conversion.

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Today was Christmas Eve, and we enjoyed it eating a nice dinner together cooked by other people.

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Zoe got a new ballet leotard today, which she wanted to show off as soon as we got home.

Very composed
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Followed by a graceful bow that somehow went wrong…

or Not So Composed
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“Christmas cakes” are a big tradition in Japan. Do people do this in the States as well?

I have no idea what Genbo is doing or thinking
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I don’t know why, but I like this shot of Zoe and me, taken by Genbo. Maybe because it does a good job of revealing Zoe at what I think is a sort of tipping point in her development. Up to now she has been the quintessential “little girl,” but now she is getting into ballet, learning how to read, learning how to write…All things that are taking her into the next stage of her life, which is poignant for me to watch and take part in.

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Here are some shots from our balcony of a rainbow that greeted us on today’s beautiful fall morning…

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