Schoolyard gatherings

SontokuSo here's one of the statues of Kinjiro Ninomiya, also known as Sontoku, which I mentioned on May 27 in "In the company of Naked Men and Children". Often depicted reading a book while carrying a bundle of firewood - remember to be diligent, frugal and virtuous.

While I was taking a photo for my kana project, some preschool teachers from the neighbouring daycare centre came in pushing these prams for the little itty-bitty kiddies to have a look at the school chickens. There were four prams all up. And notice how she has another kids strapped to her back!

Streetlight

I noticed this streetlight during a second grade lesson we had in the craft room, so I went back with my camera during the break. I hadn't taken any pictures during the weekend ;-)

I also transferred my humorous website to Vert's Page here, with my Japanese webhost.

This Afternoon's Snake

As I was leaving school, a snake was discovered outside the teachers' entrance, so naturally I got my camera out. I only got two shots as I thought that was enough. The boys were excited but were told to go away. Of course, it's harmless, and armless.

Fly on Rose

Yes, it's a fly on a rose.
It was quite warm today, and not a little breezy in the afternoon; summer's definitely on its way.

Take Two: Yellow

I read about the special dpchallenge, so after leaving school I stopped off at the yellow bridge because the sky was dramatic .... however, it wasn't dramatic in theright place exactly.

The sky was dramatically heavy in other places - it was raining heavily when I got to the East Library, and there were lots of lightning strikes around the prefecture, according to the weather report on TV.

I finally got my own library card. I borrowed a couple of Popular Photography magazines.

Me by Mi

I didn't get around to posting yesterday, but here's a photo taken by Michan. She approached my with an eyebrow pencil and drew thick eyebrows on my eyebrows. Then insisted on taking a photo. She tried with her mobile phone but the result wasn't good. So I said use my camera. Lighting wasn't good (ISO 1600), and because my camera 's autofocus doesn't work, the focus is slightly off - so what better way of hiding that than using various editing effects, such as Mosaic Tiles.




And then she asked me to do an "interesting face". It's a gookie, like Harpo Marx used to do (though my eyes aren't crossed in the photo...). (A bit of high pass filter this time)

In the company of Naked Men and Children

We went to the Romantic Village onsen today; it's not very far away and we've been to Romantic Village before, but not the onsen. It was raining slightly but it was nice sitting in the outdoor hotpool. There was at least one girl in the men's section; she must have been 3rd or 4th grade. Apparently, there was a boy in the women's section too.

The pine cone figure was in one of the rest rooms; it represents some famous character who was known to study, study, study, reading his books while walking, carrying a bundle of firewood. Most elementary schools have a statue of him somewhere.

Indoor Cyclists

I went into the gym (of the new school) to try out some architectural photos, and a teacher was in there with four students teaching them road rules. There were roads marked out in tape. It just seemed strange to see bicycles being ridden in a gym...

Poppies are Out

See?

A wee bit breezy for nice sharp macros, though. Oh, maybe I should have tried a fater shutter speed...

Cherry Dropping

There's one of eleven cherry trees along the school fence that actually produces cherries. I've mentioned before that most cherry trees are sterile. After the emergency evacuation practice, the teacher's aide shook the tree's boughs for the cherries to drop.
I think they're second graders; I don't know them so well.

Kangaroo Paw da Vinci

So, I bought this kangaroo paw last week - it was only 200 yen, and finally got around to taking a photo. Boring enough for you?


The third graders at school were on an excursion today, so I was allowed to leave after third period; I went to the cinema complex to see The Da Vinci Code. I hadn't realised it was Men's Day there, so I got in at the discount price ;-) The film is pretty good; I mean, I don't think it's as bad as the critics have been making it out to be. And I don't know why people say I look like Jean Reno. He has a large hooked nose, for a start, and brown eyes....

Asakusa Sanja Matsuri

I'd been looking forward to going to the famous Sanja Matsuri in Asakusa. It's one of Tokyo's Big Three festivals. I've been three times - but the last time was 15 years ago. However, it was raining here in the morning and Mi-chan didn't feel well, so I stayed home. A small bit I saw of it on the TV news showed it was sunny in Tokyo - but hot, and this sort of weather brought thunderstorms and heavy rain to that area in the afternoon.

So, I'll have to wait until next year and you have to put up with this gourd balloon that's on display at one of my schools. It's surprisingly close to the floor.

In the Classroom

I don't think I've had any people in my posts for a while; here's a first grade class teacher showing the kids how to draw figures using Japanese writing.


Well, not the standing figure, but the two faces use hiragana and number kanji. I'm not sure about the whale, either, but the were singing a song while drawing it.

Cattle Egret

It seems to be a cattle egret, Bubulcus ibis. they're usually all white but get the coloured feathers in breeding season/spring. I saw the group of them a few weeks ago, but then didn't see them - I thought they must have migrated on. But there they were today, in rice paddies on the other side of the road where I don't usually look. I thought it was worth stopping and trying to get a few photos of them - even though I knew they'd not stick around if I approached. But I was lucky, as this fellow had just caught a frog - I got two shots before he flew off. Of course, it's a crop of a much larger photo. It was raining very sparsely st the time.

Fly-by-Day

This fellow was down on the creek, hanging on the grass stalk. When I first saw it, I thought it was an immature dragonfly, perhaps just emerged, because it didn't move at all. But it really is some kind of kagerou, of which there are 10 species in Japan, with 109 different kinds. It's a dayfly or ephemera. It has two long thin tails, and may live only 2 or 3 days as an adult, or even only half a day.

Life by the Creek

I went out for a walk in the afternoon, actually hoping to find a frog to put on my lanscap for the lenscap challenge. I didn't find any frogs, but there were some dragonflies and damselflies down by the creek. I guess they were taking advantage of the fine weather, because it's been quite dull lately.

I was quite surprised that I could get so close to these guys as they the type who are usually quite camera-shy. The bottom one is certainly an Ookawa tombo ("big river damselfly") Mnais nawai, the male. I'm pretty sure the top one is the female of the species.

Bee on the landing Strip

I stopped to take some photos of the irises next to a rice paddy. However, it was a bit breezy for any good macro work, but I got a couple of pics of bees. The irises (this kind, at least) really make the bees work for their pollen; they have to enter and go down the chute (the yellow stripes) to get to the pollen. When they've finished, they have to go backwards to get out.
I changed to the white balance for some of the shots - this was "Shadow" - but I didn't change it in the RAW editor to a more natural colour green in the background. (Purple seems ot be a hard colour for my camera to deal with .;;;)

Madness

In a fit of m***ess, I decided to change the Template of this blog. Of course, that means losing any formatting such as that for the the <--- dpc links, now at left. Oh, well, 'tis done now.

Just to show you how boring things are this week, here's a picture of a yellow flowering plant that I presume is related to the lettuce or cabbage family; the leaves certainly look cabbagey. I should find out what it's called some day, then promptly forget what it is. I'd been trying for a few days to think what dogwood is called in Japanese (having posted a picture a while ago of its pink flowers) (and, yes, I could have looked back), but I didn't remember it until I was perusing the Japanese newspaper this morning, which mentioned the Hanamizu Festival somewhere.

123465

I haven't done much photo editing in the last couple of days, so here's another view of the Kirifuri Falls - a wide angle shot, obviously.

I missed seeing my car's odometer turn over to 123456 km this morning, but I saw it at 123465 km. It's back to the commute after Golden Week, where it takes 10 or 15 minutes to get onto the bridge... :-(

Children's Day

It being Children's Day, what better way to spend it than to go to the coin laundry and wash your sneakers in the sneaker-washing washing machine.

Actually, we did spend time with Mi-chan's nieces.

Kirifuri Falls

Another one from Wednesday, which was a public holiday. Today is another public holiday (Children's Day), so this is Golden Week in Japan - most people are on vacation.

Sacred Places

We went up to Nikko today, and actually went on the Shinkyo, the Sacred vermillion bridge, which has been open for walking on (a;beit a special platform over the bridge surface) since the renovations finished last year. The open season was supposed to finish in April, but has been extended for a few more months. However, all the pictures I took were 15 to 35 minutes before the dpchallenge rollover, so would be ineligible. ............
I also took some photos of the Kirifuri waterfalls, which were more visible than last time we saw them because the trees aren't in full foliage yet.

Finally, we went further up the mountain to a Japan Post Office affiliated hotel to go to the onsen (spa bath). Not a natural one, because it was on the sixth floor/roof. I also went into the sauna, which had a 12 minute clock. I'd never seen a 12 minute clock before.

Rhythms of Bamboo

This was a possibility for the Rhytm challenge

Jack-in-the-whatsimahoozit

I went out very early this morning to the local bamboo grove, and saw this flower. I posted it already on dpc, and got the answer that it's probably some kind of jack-in-the-pulpit. I thought, a pitcher plant. Quite poisonous, apparently, especially the roots. Although you can't see it in this photo, the long stringy tendril that sticks up, turns back on itself and curls around. I'm not sure if we have this kind of plant in Australia.

Saturday's Pic

Looks like I missed out on posting yesterday. I took a whole lot of photos at a high school kyudo competition at the prefectural gymnasium, then popped in to the next door hospital grounds where these cherry trees were blooming. They're called camellia cherries, if I recall correctly ... but it doesn't matter if I don't. The blossoms are huge and clustered (but this is a closeup, obviously). This could have been an entry for the Free Study if I was desperate.

Self

Other poeople have been doing a 30 day self-portrait challenge, posting a self-portrait every day for a month. I could do that, but be like the gentleman in England in the 18th century (?) who made a wager that he could walk from Norwich to London in four days (can't remember the exact details - somewhere to London over a number of days). His friends bet he couldn't, but he did - he just didn't do it on consecutive days.

This is in the male teachers' toilets at one of my schools. For this shot, I held my camera at chest level ... I guess I pointed it a bit high. It's my image in the mirror, so I reversed it.

Heron ,,,, Egret

I can never remember which is which. Anyway, the farmers have started flooding the rice fields this week, and some have already been planted. The birds love it. Howerver, as usual, they're very shy about being photographed. I should keep my longest lens in the car (even though it's not of such great quality, but it was cheap. maybe there's a lesson in that.)

Dogwood, Nosewater tree?

I stopped off at the town office carpark to take photos of the carp streamers they have hanging there. This was on the way from east school to North school, where I was to teach one lesson and have lunch. It rained heavily and there was thunder and lighning during lunch - with a brief blackout.

The dogwood trees are in bloom. When I got to North, the newspaper was on my desk with a picture of dogwood trees on the front. In Japanese, it's hanamizuki, which sounds like "nose water tree", though is really "flower water tree".

Camouflage

A couple of spider macros today. Very hard to get a nice sharp image because of the wind and natural body movement. The psider on the web ran off onto the tip of the pine tree branch - and would be very hard to spot if you didn't know it was there. They are both quite small spiders - I just made a big crop of the original photos (with my 29-80mm lens with the 80mm macro set).

Negative Bulbous

Here he is as a negative of himself. Bizarro Mundo.
Saturday was board game day - I won't post any pics here, though.

Bulbous

One of my schools has a fishtank with three of these fellows in it, goldfish with eyes like this. They're called chotengan. I'm considering whether to put a negative of this guy in the Negative challenge. Whatever, I will continue taking photos of them (I just hope someone cleans the tank sometime...)

By the way, of course I know about MS clip art - I just posted that because I didn't get around to any photo stuff yesterday.

Clip Art!

Wow, I found that you can get clip art off the internet FOR FREE! And it's really easy. And it's easy to get to. Like, if you're using Microsoft Word, you can click on Clip Art then select the link to go to Clip Art on Office Online (as long as you are online - and there you can search for what you need from gahillions of clips. Brilliant! And here's a picture of a kookaburra that I was looking for. So cool!

You might not hear from me for a while as I'll be looking through the extensive galleries of clip art....

Demolition

The old department store, at the bottom of the steps of the big shrine in town, went out of business several years ago (one of at least three that went bust during the bad economic times in Japan). It's finally being demolished, though the other two weretaken over and renovated by other companies.

Riverside Cherries

One I took yesterday, as I had to go into my company's office to get the paperwork for my visa extension. The office is next to the river, but I rarely go in there. The weeping cherry trees along that section of the river - on both sides - are really quite nice. Most cherry trees are for decoration only - they are sterile and don't produce fruit. This is probably why you rarely see bees hanging round them.

Sakura Festival

Another old shot, from the week before last. All my photos from this weekend have been for the Portrait challenge. I reshot them today as yesterday's shot were too near the wall. I hope my entry does really well this time.

How's your eye sihgt?

Just a machine for testing one's optical capacity...

Rape

Passing by a field of canola, I guess it is, or rape as it used to be known. When I drove up, there was a carload of little old ladies who had also stopped to take photos.They were thinking that they had to get off the road to let me pass, but I got out of my car. "Oh, it's a foreigner!" they kept repeating...

Another Cherry Tree in Blossom

Actually, it was from a week ago, on the way back from the station after having been to Tokyo. The steps lead up to a temple and a cemetery. I didn't take my camera today - another dull, wettish day, and I was too busy. Most days now I will have to teach five lessons (being the assistant teacher...). It took me a whole hour to drive to school in the morning - other times it could take only 35 minutes.

Oh well, back to work

The school year started yesterday, but I only had to go in the afternoon for a meeting. Today, I went in the afternoon for one lesson and a meeting - except the meeting was at one of the other schools. It was rainy and rather cool.

This is the tree in blossom next to the Yellow bridge. Actually, there are two or three yellow bridges across this little river, but I think this one is the biggest.

Inside Tulip

A lovely spring day, though perhaps a bit breezy (which was all right for when I went out to the skydiving place for "Jump" - and that beats trying to find a grasshopper to do a macro of, which was my other option for "Jump".). Lots of blossom trees about, but here's a tulip in splendid colour.

Now what's happened?

Saturday now ... I guessed I missed yesterday as I had to wait around in the evening over on the other side of the city while Mi-chan went ot a party. I went to Bell Mall and did some writing in Tully's Cafe.

This morning, we got the tyres changed on her car as there's little chance of snow now (though it was a bit chilly today.)

The photo is from Wednesday's visit to the Tokyo International Forum, a possibilty for the candid challenge, but I think there's too much noise in the picture.

Candids

I had a short meeting at school in the afternoon, so on the way back I went to a park near the Honda factory where there was a cherry blossom festival starting up. I took my camera to practise candid shots for the Candid III challenge. These old guys were chatting away. (Highlights too blown out.)

Meanwhile at home, work continued on the new house which is being built on the western side of our ground floor apartment - they put the prefeab walls up. This makes a huge difference to the amount of light that comes in :-(. But I guess it will be cooler in summer...

Big Architecture

I went into Tokyo today, but unfortunately it rained. Lots of cherry blossoms were floating on the water in the various moats - they would have made some nice pictures, but I could only see them from the train.

As I took my camera anyway, I went to the Tokyo International Forum building (C block, I think it is) to take some photos. I was hoping to find some people I could ask to jump for a photo, but that didn't come to pass.

Refractory Owl

Here's an outtake from the Refraction challenge. Voting hasn't even started, but as hardly anyone visits this blogs it doesn't matter if I post similar shots to my entry. I didn't use the owl in my entry though.

I have a collection of owls and tortoises back home, but I brought a couple of the owls to Japan. I think I got them both in Greece - and I haven't been to Greece for 22 years.

Quackified (YELLOW)

I decided to try a shoot of my original idea for the Yellow challenge, a rubber duckie and an origami crane. I was going to call it "Quack?" "Honk!", but I decided to keep the entry I had already submitted.

I went to my new schools today to show my face to the staff. It was extremely windy - clouds of soil were travelling south, as rice fields have recently been ploughed but it's too early for them to be flooded.

The Pinhole Experience

I didn't get around to posting yesterday, but I did take some photos for the dpchallenges. I also picked up the prints from my latest snazzy camera. OK, it's not so snazzy - it's a pinhole camera I got from a magazine. It takes 35mm film, as well as little bits of photographic paper which you can develop yourself with the chemicals provided. However, I lost the actual pinhole piece when I was changing lenses (there's a lens piece as well). Anyway, the quality isn't all that great, as one would expect.