Happy birthday Japan.
A narrow street lined with brick walls. A partially visible house is located to the right, and a Japanese flag can be seen hanging into the street. Most of the scene is in shadow but the sky beyond is bright blue and cloudless.
Today, I learned that Japan’s official birthday was first observed in 1967 (making the country two years my senior.)
Wikipedia adds, from 1872 to 1948, February 11 was known as Kigen-setsu(紀元節), a holiday commemorating the day on which—according to the Nihon Shoki— the legendary Emperor Jimmu is said to have acceded the throne in 660 BCE.
Husks of winter
On a walk yesterday afternoon I saw both the remnants of last year and the first signs of spring. Welcome warmer weather!
I looked up the name of the first plant and found that its many common names include hitch hikers, black-jack, beggarticks, farmer's friends and Spanish needle, but it is most commonly referred to as cobbler’s pegs.
Credit: Wiki
komorebi
Recently, my sister watched Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days as a birthday treat. Now I want to watch it.
Trailer:
https://youtu.be/HTgWYojq-z8?si=MSQurQyT2aJrfcRO
Her enthusiasm for the Koji Yakusho character’s attitude to life, work and leisure is infectious. One of his great pleasures, like mine is photography. A recurring theme of his pictures is ‘komorebi’, or the filtering of sunlight through branches and leaves.
The word is formed from a compound of the words for tree 木, leak 漏れ, and sun 日. Inspired, I took a walk in the park.
Golden Week
The Golden Week holiday starts next week. We’ll take a break from Tuesday. Traditionally it’s the time when farmers fill their fields with water, here pumped from an adjoining river. This is in readiness for planting rice seedlings. I recently watched a farmer flattening the border of the field to make it water tight. A week or so later and these sweet purple flowers blossomed where his tractor/paddle had been at work.
Showing off
On my way to class this morning I passed a Camellia bush and snapped this beauty.
100 decibels
My watch, which quietly monitors these things warned me this morning that if I remained in a 100db environment for more than 30 minutes I could damage my hearing. Looking at the timeline it appeared to coincide with a game of Pin the carrot on the snowman at a local kindergarten yesterday afternoon. Even though there were only eight in the class the children got very excited!
Staff should be issued with earplugs. Shall raise the matter with management at the first opportunity.
A chip off the old block
Kairakuen park was looking absolutely beautiful this morning. After an overcast start the sun appeared and lit up the autumnal colors. I took these photos of the Tarou Cedar which is about 800 years old. Next to it is a natural spring which pumps out 100 tons of water per day! Elsewhere, a delicate sapling caught my eye as did the maple leaves and a thatched gate way.
-So lucky to have this within walking distance of home.
Mono-crowm
Great to be able to grab my (phone) camera and record this crow taking off as I started my morning walk today. It had been perching on a fence and naturally took flight (and fright) as I approached.
Processing the photo prompted me to collect other favorites from 2023 and post them here:
www.flickr.com/people/wilpercy/
第８回水戸黄門漫遊マラソン
On Sunday I spent several hours taking photographs of the 8th Mito Komon Manyu Marathon.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wilpercy/albums
Runners lap Lake Senba.
