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.

A Side Temple

All the photos I posted from my trip to Nikko the other day were of flowers.... so here's one of a little side temple that I had never visited before - maybe it's not usually open.

Fireworks on TV

The Sumidgawa Fireworks were shown live on TV Tokyo tonight, and here's a photo of one of the entries in the competition.

Lilies

Some of the superb lilies that were growing in a garden in Nikko. There are quite a few around. It's a yamayuri, or mountain lily.

In Search of Zen

I went up to Nikko to find a suitable subject for a Zen photo. I'm not sure if I came away with anything simple enough for the dpc CHallenge.

I did get some flower and insect shots as well.

Back to the bloggy

Being on summer holidays, one just getrs lazy about blogging.
Here are a couple of shots from last Saturday, the festival in Moka. I considered entering the girl on the portable shrine into the Gold challenge, but as I had already made a special detour on my trip to Tokyo, I decided to keep that one in (doing not very well...).
The main reason I went to the Moka Festival was to take photos of the fireworks. 20,000 of them in a show of 90 minutes or so. (It included a laser display which I couldn't see very well). At last I was able to try out the focussing technique, which I had read baout last year.

Bamboo Firefly

Hmm, been too busy to take photos until today - unofficially, the start of my summer vacation. So I went into Tokyo for some shopping. The train took about an hour longer than usual because the recent rains have affected the track in some places, so it means Go Slow.

Anyway, this bamboo firefly was in a window display in Asakusa.

Lantern-lined Street

I went down to Oyama yesterday and it rained heavily in the evening, apparently. Fortunately, when I was riding the bike back from the station it wasn't raining. I stopped and took this street scene, thinking it would fit the Lines challenge, but I don't think it would go over so well with the voters - certainly not compared to what the big guns will produce.

Not the Luxury Today

I thought I was only going have to teach only two lessons today, but my offsider Yui was away sick so I had to take her two classes as well. I had been hoping to do a whole lot of photo editing, which is why I took my computer in to school. In the end, I only got three done, including this bee. Through the viewfinder, I saw it create that droplet.

Ridiculous and Sublime

One of the sixth grade classes has a travel agency's calendar in the wall. The May picture was of Disneyworld in Florida with Mickey Mouse climbing the fake mountain (Matterhorn?). I thought it was very amusing. The June photo was of Mt Kilimanjaro, and they had cut out Mickey and stuck him in the picture. Very amusing. Last week I noticed that they hadn't changed it over to July yet, but today, there he was, floating over some part of Hawai.i. So I went and got my camera from the air-conditioned staff room and took a photo of it - but, as expected, the lens fogged up because of the change of temperature - hot and muggy classroom.

And then sunset just after 7pm. This is after a rainy day of hot and muggy weather - and FOG. It seems strange to have fog in summer, but there it is. It was especially evident in the morning in the town where I work.

Busy Bumblebee

I've been as busy as this little big guy, so photographing and posting every day is not really possible. I took him on Thursday. The deputy principle at one of my schools is a very keen gardener, so the entrance is always festooned with flowers.