Burnet

Oh, I've lapsed again.

On Tuesday, being my last full day of the summer vacation, I went up to Senjogahara and the smaller Odashirogahara for a hike and to take lots of photos. It was much cooler up there, too. I haven't finished editing all the pics I wanted to from the summer, but this is one that pertains to a photo in today's paper - showing waremokou, or burnet (it's in the rose family, apparently). It's a harbinger of autumn, I guess, from the accompanying article. This is one of my shots, with a dragonfly.

The Miner

I did a touristy thing today seeing that my summer vacation will soon draw to a close. I went to the Ashio Copper Mine, whcih operated from 1610 to 1973. There were 1300 kilometres of tunnels built in that time. Of course, only a very small section is open as a museum. I might write more when I less tired....

Spring Flow

Another shot from yesterday. Green and cool. I liked how there was a mist floating just above the water, which, by the way, is decidedly delicious.

Spiky Spider

I went on a photography expedition up a mountain today. I saw several of these very long legged spiders. This one had been with its partner hanging on a rope, possibly mating, but I did get a good shot of that. Notice the spike on its back.

New Fireworks

Hehe, it's nice t be on vacation.
We went to my work town's fireworks display on Saturday; we got there much later than I had hoped and found a good spot to take photos. I had imagined wandering around the stalls seeing lots of my students, but I only went for a short time to the end of the row of stalls to buy some fried noodles and didn't see anyone I recognised.

Shrimp

There's a summer exhibition of Okinawan marine life at one of the department stores this month. I feel sorry for some of the fish, being biggish in smallish tanks - like a baby shark (unless it's a very small full-grown one) swimming around with an injury on the tip of it's nose.
This is a variety of shrimp that was less shy than another kind that was extremely ornate.

In The Amazon

I've certainly been lazy with processing and uploading my photos recently. I went to the river park aquarium yesterday where they're having a special Amazon River exhibit. This is an Amazon Horned Frog.

Up a Ladder

We went to part of the summer festival yesterday. Each year, this fire brigade group does the traditional ladder-balancing act (some ladies do it aw well). This was just before sunset.

Having a whale of a time

When I went to Tokyo yesterday, I got some fish head masks for my cousin, who runs a costume hire shop in Melbourne; naturally, I couldn't pass up the opportunity for some self-portraits before sending them on.

I took lots of photos for the Looking Up challenge - it's going to be a tough task choosing which one to submit.

Well, hello there, Kitty!

I went into Tokyo today for some shopping and photography. Next to Tokyo Station is the Hato Bus terminal I always call it "pigeon bus" because "hato" also means "pigeon" in Japanese). Most of their buses are yellow, but they have a couple covered in Hello Kitty livery...
Kitty Bus
Of course, I couldn't do much about the refelctions on the windscreen.