We particularly enjoyed our visit of the Botanic Garden. A surprising number of desert plants bloom, for yuccas to cacti, to many different agaves and others. I liked very much a small tree called Palo Verde, curious because of its green bark


( Read more... )

I recently spent a week in Las Vegas. Such a lovely change from the cold and rain or snow of Maryland...

One of our first excursions was to visit Red Rock Canyon Park. It reminded me of Arizona, which is of course fairly close.


( Read more... )

We have been having a very cold January, with snow, ice, etc. So here are some pictures to show you;


( Read more... )

I had nice sunny weather for most of my stay, and no rain at all. This last day was particularly clear, and I was delighted to be able to see Fuji-san from my hotel window:


( Read more... )

I stayed briefly in Nagoya, and took advantage of it to go visit Inuyama Castle. It is about 30 minutes from the city by train, then there is a 15-20 minutes walk through the town of the same name. The terrain is flat, and the walk was easy. However, I was told it would be interesting because of the old buildings and their shops, and I was ( Read more... )

This was my last day in Kyoto, and I chose to go visit Shinnyo-do. While founded in 992, this temple was destroyed during the Onin war [1467-77], rebuilt in 1482, and after various vicissitudes, finally settled here in 1693. I understand parts were rebuilt during the Edo period. It isn't much visited, except on November 15th when a famous statue of ( Read more... )

Daitokuji, founded 1319,  is a large walled ensemble of Zen temples, almost two dozen of them, of varying dates. Aya-san and I visited four of the more important ones. There are restrictions on taking photos in most of them. It was in fact, quite frustrating to visit those lovely old places and not be able to take pictures ( Read more... )

Shoren-in is a Buddhist shrine near Higashiyama subway station, not far from Chion-in temple. It was first built in the 13th century, and for a long time closely connected to the imperial family,of which its high priests were members. It has some very old trees, amongst which centuries old camphor trees. It is largely ignored by visitors and tour ( Read more... )

The first shrine I went to on this visit was Eikando. Unfortunately, it is quite well known, and there were a lot of visitors, including large number of Koreans, and even some Chinese tourists. It is a Buddhist temple, founded in the 11th century, starting from the villa of a Heian noble, who gave it to a priest. There are several buildings, ( Read more... )

Haruna Jinja was first built in 586. Obviously the shrines have been repaired, modified, and probably at least partially rebuilt at times. But the consensus is on the great age of the place. Despite it being mid November and a weekday, there was a fair number of people visiting. It is about an hour from Takasaki station by bus. You climb a road ( Read more... )