Category: Pictures
November Backlog: Autumn Leaves
Some low-quality pics from nighttime Momiji at Shōren’in
Trip to Iya Valley Pt. 3
Last and final part in our Iya Trilogy
After a slow casual start over the weekend, we finally kicked into full-Iya tourism mode on Saturday night:
First, was a night at Ueda-san’s lovely B&B in a traditional farmhouse: 200 year-old chestnut-wood house, large washitsu with circling corridors, relaxing stone-lined ofuro and mellow family vibe. When I eventually buy my house in the Japanese countryside, this is probably what it will look like.
Even though some the charm of the above amenities was lost on my travelling buddies (particularly the awesome onsen-sized Japanese bath: a little “too exposed to the outside” for their modesty) and Ueda-san’s exclusive use of Japanese required a bit of translating back-and-forth with the group, everybody came together on the homemade, fresh-from-the-farm fruit, veggie and goat-milk yoghurt breakie… followed by a formal introduction to the goats themselves. As it turns out, milking a goat is not easy at all, but I can now add that to my short list of skills that might come handy, should civilisation crumble and send us all back to the bronze age.
Sunday was the day we had picked for finally touring Iya proper.
Halloween Weekend
A selection of random pics from last weekend’s Halloween party (guest photography credits: Aki, Cory & Yanmei).
Prize for creativity goes to Cory, who came as A Shower.
Prize for glamour icons was shared between Sona’s Audrey Hepburn and Anita’s Betty Boop.
On the witch vs. devil front, the battle was fierce: in the end, Tyana, Aki & Maja took Team Witch to victory by a slim margin against Jun & Yanmei’s Team Devil.
Rafa took a break from his busy Colombian import-export business to show his scarred face at the party (later enhanced by some strategically-placed white powder).
Roland and yours truly provided for some much-needed furry fuzziness and important life-lessons to the kids, courtesy of Sesame Hood’s favourites: Elmo and Cookie Monster.
Towering over the festivities and occasionally bringing chills down the spine of all guests present with his lugubrious laugh and transylvanian accent: Count Rei graced us with his presence (and gets extra points for being the only one ballsy enough to ride Japanese transports as is).
Shugakuin BBQ
What better way to celebrate a return to the world of the living, than by an all-afternoon BBQ party by a river, in the heights above Kyoto…
Typhoons, Birthdays and Karaoke…
Dear reader,
Our absent-minded blogger has inadvertently mismatched all his legends, will you be able to give each of the pictures above its appropriate description?1There’s a trap!
1. Sunny post-typhoon Kyoto bike ride along the Kamogawa.
2. Aya, post-typhoon-karaoke-night, posing in front of an unusually agitated Ducky River.
3. Late-Summer fire-sale on fireworks (¥200 for a full pack of rockets!?!) and planned excursion to Nara this week, should have the deers worried for their sleep.
4. Birthday tabe-nomi-hodai, followed by drunken antics at Philippe’s, followed by even more drunken (and hazier) antics at World’s.
Obon Weekend and then some…
Dear Online Diary,
My Obon weekend was quite cool. So cool in fact, that I barely even took a picture. Here are whatever few random moments I managed to capture, and I’m sure you’ll make your imagination work for the rest.
Love,
Dave from Kyoto
Featured: 1.2.3. End of night at Sonic Mania. 4. Outdoor lunch with Jus’. 5. Babies: My friends haz them. 6. Napping all afternoon in Yoyogi park. 7. Aliza’s awesome beach birthday in Biwako 8. As a special extra: quick snaps of yesterday’s rock concert at Tranq room…
Not featured: lots of drinking and round-up of the usual Tokyo places, driving through the streets of Tokyo at 1am, soaking in the Japanese Alps and much more…
Kyoto Summer: Hanabi, Typhoons and Yukatas…
Enjoying the balmy Kyoto Summer (35C, 100% humidity) in between trips.
Pictures featuring, in no particular order: Kishiwada hanabi, Gion matsuri’s latest Yukata trends, Kyoto’s bi-monthly Summer storm, Becca and Niki keeping it real in Osaka, Biwako hanabi (not featured: the smorgasbord of fresh sea beasties sashimi, spear-fished and prepared by our host) and Ujigawa hanabi (with special props to our awesome spot-saving skills for that one: any closer and we’d be lighting our cigarettes on rocket flames)…
Thanks Lauren for the Ujigawa pics (the better ones above).
Berlin Backlog
The upside of the strict ‘no-camera-no-keitai-no-nothing’ policy of some of Berlin’s clubs, is that I haven’t had to feel very guilty about practically not taking a single picture when going out… Here is whatever little I took anyway.
Now with 100% more cats…
Friday, a visit to my favourite supah-cheap shōjin-ryōri bar-restaurant in Shijo and its in-house friendly feline, triggered a chain of increasingly cat-oriented events on Saturday.
After taking Aya and Naomi, her friend visiting from Vancouver, to check out on the Philosopher’s Cats (and Ginkakuji while we were at it), it was decided that the cat quota for the day had not been reached and I followed two increasingly restless cat-addicts to my first ever Neko Kafé.
Actually, the place was pleasantly more like somebody’s living room with a lot of cats, than “café”… The little critters were unsurprisingly adorable, and the range was pretty broad: from disgustingly postcard-cute 1-month old kittens, to aging ojiisan cat, with all stripes and shapes in between (Hitler-moustache included).
All in all, a reasonable deal at ¥500 an hour, if only for countless memorable pictures of Aya and Naomi, in full crazy-cat-ladies mode, playing and cooing at little purring balls of furs.
