Woe

Does this mean that if I start drinking at midday there will be no woe involved? Or does it mean that getting up early will drive me to drink? Also, why does he look so smug? And why is he being showered with gold coins?

This poster seemed self-explanatory when I took the photo, but on reflection it makes less and less sense. Get plastered! But don't get up early. Getting up early will bring you woe.

Alcoholism has never seemed quite so attractive.

 I like the photo above better, but this one shows the whole poster. I almost (but not quite) wish I'd bought it at the flea market yesterday

Happy Boxing Day, everybody!

Moon eclipse

It's been so long since I used my camera on manual it took me a while to figure out how to get decent pictures without a tripod. (Or perhaps it's not possible with moon pictures.) Anyway, I took these pictures near the beginning of the eclipse, but missed the total eclipse. I was getting too cold, and didn't actually think these were working. It was only when I got them on the computer and resized them I saw that while most of them were hopeless blurry these three were actually quite good.

Actually I went to bed before the total eclipse. I did get up again to go out to see it, but I didn't take my camera. I was too sleepy to hold it steady.

I took these pictures lying on my back on the cold concrete and steadying the camera on my nose. They were taken only a minute apart, around 10.30. The full eclipse was at 11.05. I wish I'd taken some later ones, now.

RIver visit

Today I went for a short bicycle ride, and visited the river near where i used to teach. I hadn't been there for a long time. I did not stay long, though, because it turned out hotter than I expected and I was getting a headache.

I met some of my old friends, and a few new ones.

I met a heron. 

Then I met an egret.

Then I met some ducks. They looked at me funny. That made me pretty sure we'd met before.

A carp surfaced to say hello and ask if I had any food. Sadly, I didn't.

I also saw a grossly overweight Garbage Fish, sulking grumpily in the shallows. These are fairly common and I don't usually bother photographing them.

 Next I saw a Tin Can Fish. I have seen many of those before, too.

I also encountered an elderly woman feeding pigeons and sparrows.

And as I was leaving I had the great good fortune to spot, across the road, the rare and colourful Brassiere Bird, draped languidly in a tree.

 

While it is not uncommon to catch a glimpse of the Brassiere Bird in the wild, it is unusual to see them out in the open like this. 

 

It must have been the heat.

Rain

This tropical storm has been moving so slowly it has lasted three days, or is it four? For two days we had warnings issued by the Met Office, but nothing much happened. Then yesterday afternoon I went out to get an acupuncture treatment and then have dinner with a friend, and was relieved to see the warnings had been downgraded to 'advisories.' We had a lovely Chinese meal, in one of the big covered shopping streets in Osaka, and then I went down to the underground station to catch the train. The train went underground until two stops before mine, and when we came out above ground I was surprised to see it was raining hard. It had been raining a little when I left the acupuncture clinic, but nothing serious.

At my station it was raining very hard indeed. I stood under cover, waiting and hoping it was one of those brief squalls. Finally I got sick of waiting, and made a dash for my bicycle. I had an umbrella, but this was not umbrella sort of rain. My head stayed dry, or at least dryish, but when I got home the only option I had, really, was to strip off just inside the door and make a run for the bathroom to grab a towel for myself and a bucket to put my clothes into to get them to the washing machine without dripping water all over the floor. It was THAT sort of rain.

It's raining again now.

It has been a lot worse in other areas in Japan, and there have been mudslides and flash floods and so on. So far twenty-one people have died and fifty-four are missing.

It was not raining when I took this picture. I wish I'd had my camera instead of my phone, though. (For those who know Osaka, this is the crosswalk between the JR and Hankyu stations.)

For medicated ladies

What did I do?

I went to a flea market today, and had a lovely time despite, or perhaps because of, the occasional drizzle. It rained quite hard at one point, but that coincided with the time we decided it was time for lunch, so that was perfect. Otherwise the temperatures were perfectly bearable. There was the occasional bit of misty rain, but although it was very humid it was MUCH nicer than the heat we've had recently. In fact it is unusually cool for August.

I haven't been taking many photos in the past couple of years and was never very good, really, at knowing how to use my lovely camera, and today I accidentally hit a button that caused this:

The problem was that I had no idea which button I'd hit, or how to change it back. WHY DID EVERYTHING GO BLUE? And WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT EVERYTHING TO GO BLUE? Why is it so easy for this to happen? Is it an effect people often want?

I took a few more photos and was distressed to see that that it wasn't a one-off thing. All the photos were turning out blue, and I didn't know how to change it back. Was I doomed to take blue photos for the rest of the day? I fiddled. I hit buttons. I didn't understand the menus (or even how to use them) because I hadn't used the camera for so long. I've used it recently a little, but only in auto mode. (Must read the manual again.)

Nothing worked.

Finally I had a clever (i.e. simple) idea and turned off the camera. Then I turned it on again, just in time to take this (in auto mode):

Thank goodness turning off the camera worked! I would have hated to miss this shot. It would have been even better from the front, but I was busy fiddling with the camera when they were coming towards me, and this shot from the rear is good enough. I particularly like the way the head priest (I'm assuming he's the head priest, since he has a minion to carry his umbrella and the others are all getting rained on) has a halo. Yes, I know it's someone's hat, but it looks to me like a halo that slipped slightly.

I like to think it slipped slightly because he'd just had a slightly naughty thought.

Ceremony

What I saw today in my local shopping street was some kind of Shinto ritual. Shops got blessed. I do not know what it was all about in detail, though. I didn't even know it was going to happen. I was just going to the supermarket when I got caught up in it. I had been kicking myself for not taking my camera out of my bag before leaving, and then suddenly I was glad I had it.

This photo was taken with my phone, however. I had been taking video with the phone, then the priest started throwing confetti in the air, and I wanted to get a shot of that but didn't have my good camera ready.

What really got me about these priests, though, was the clogs they were wearing. I don't remember having seen them before. Was it just this particular shrine? Then, when I thought about it, I realized I had never seen a Shinto priest dressed for outside before. I have often seen them in shrines, performing their various duties, but inside they do not wear shoes.


They are wonderful clogs. There is something fantastically arty about them. Impractical, but arty.

The beautiful little girl doing the lie-down strike was determined to not respond to anybody. People asked her if she was all right, and she ignored them. Her mother waited patiently. I looked at her, then aimed my camera and clicked. Her expression did not change.

Then I squatted down and showed her the picture on the back of my camera. She stared at it, and one corner of her mouth twitched.

I think I might have been witnessing a quiet tantrum.

Lie-down strike

I will not move. It is too hot. Don't try and make me.

Oh, great Watermelon