jacobblogs

Author: cobiathan

  • Hike Photos w/the Japanese Olympus C4100

    It’s been a while! I moved from Oregon to Southern California recently, so I’ve been busy with that and a new full-time job. But today, the weather was cool and cloudy, and I knew I wanted to get outside. I headed out, bringing along the Olympus C4100 I picked up in Tokyo earlier this year.

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    This flower, right outside my front door, is not jasmine as best my research can tell. I think we do get jasmine around here, mostly planted. When you walk by a blooming jasmine plant, it smells amazing.

    The trailhead I found was next to a rather dilapidated nature center – it looked pretty closed, but they did have signs for guided hikes and other community events. I wonder if that would be a good way to meet people?

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    A sign on the trail had this beautifully hand-drawn map of the trail. It follows a canyon for a ways, then climbs steeply up one side to reach an end.

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    If you follow this Narnia-like portal through the dense bushes, you can walk all the way up to a dead-end road at the top of the canyon. There are a few unofficial but well-loved trails carved through the hardy green shrubs, including a small overlook of the canyon, perfect for a picnic.

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    OLYMPUS C4100

    Along the way, I encountered a good number of Tropaeolum majus (Garden Nasturtiums), which originated in the Andes mountains in south America, but have become naturalized in California. (Wikipedia) I included the scientific name because apparently actual nasturtiums are something else!

    These plants are also entirely edible – but the flower is the most interesting part. It’s spicy!

    I also encountered a number of other interesting plants whose names I do not know 😛

    Near the top of the trail, I found an old cactus with some new growth…

    One of the most interesting plants (to me) that I learned about on this hike was Schinus molle, commonly known as California Pepper Tree. It produces these clusters of small red berries, which are often sold dried as “Pink peppercorns”. They don’t actually have any relation to black pepper, but I can confirm that when tasted, the seeds are quite pleasantly peppery. This tree is also native to the Andes, but was widely in favor in the early 20th century as a shade tree and was planted widely over Southern California. (Wikipedia)

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    After confirming that they were edible, I tasted a few. The outer flesh surrounding the seeds had mostly dried on these ones, but what remained was sweet with an herbal aromatic berry flavor. These are evergeens, so there was a tinge of that in the flavor. The seeds, of course, taste a lot like pepper. Not too spicy, but they leave a nice burning sensation in the back of your throat. I’d love to see these in a spicy fruit jam, as part of a drink, or spicing a sausage.

    So much so, that I may have gathered a few bundles from a nearby tree to bring home and experiment with!

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    On my way back down, I found another pepper tree – but this one was flowering! These flowers are much smaller than the resulting berries – only about 5mm wide!

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    I enjoyed seeing all the edible plants along this hike. It was interesting to think about how many native plants exist that can be used as seasoning. Sometime it would be fun to make a dish seasoned entirely with foraged spices, but that will be for another weekend 🙂

  • Backyard Bugs: Macro photography w/Nikon D200

    A few nights ago I was watching a video on basic macro photography tips for good bug photos. Today I decided to go try them out!

    The video was pretty simple overall – you need a macro lens (or an extension tube), a camera (of course), and a flash diffuser. All I have is the camera and a lens with a “macro” mode – not as good as a dedicated macro, but still acceptable.

    The entire setup. A less floppy diffuser would be nice.

    For the diffuser, I cut a hole in a piece of printer paper and stuck it over the lens. It works pretty well!

    Look at those wings!

    Weirdly, about half the bugs I approached flew away instantly. No idea why…

    Bug’s Eye View of the Average Macro Photographer
    A caterpillar! I wonder what the long hairs are for…

    Walking around the yard peering into tall grass and plants looking for bugs, I felt like a Bug Catcher from Pokemon…

    To be fair, this is probably the closest I’ll get to experiencing what it’s like to document Pokemon using a Pokedex.

    Eugh. This isn’t actually a spider! It’s from the order Opiliones, which are arachnids, but not spiders. It’s also commonly known as a Daddy Long Legs, or Harvestmen.
    This one had a golden iridescent sheen to it – probably something about the structure of its scales refracts/reflects just the right wavelengths of light.
    I didn’t get a single crisp Bumblebee photo – they were always moving around, even when sipping nectar from these blackberry flowers.
    An ant thing. This was larger than a common black ant.
    This one posed for me! When I got close, it switched positions a couple of times as if trying to let me get several angles.
    No idea what this little dude is, but he has cool patterns on him.
    Another view of this ladybug.
    Ladybug isn’t bothered by how evil this plant looks.
    She crawls right up the spikes.
    Oh, bye!

    I also got a few nice non-bug shots:

    Maybe next I’ll try 3D printing an extension tube to let me use this lens for better macro shots (or one of my other lenses).

    In case anyone is curious, here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLNux66fdQ0

    All for now!

  • Sony Mavica – a floppy disk camera

    I’ve been into “vintage” digital cameras for a while (vintage meaning roughly pre-2008, at least for most electronics). This is the camera that sparked my interest in the first place: a Sony Mavica FD75 that I found for $15 at a local thrift store.

    From 2001, this oddly-shaped camera is a product of the early era of digital cameras, when the much-smaller digital sensors (compared to film) meant designers could experiment with new form factors – in this case, putting the lens/sensor in the top corner of the camera body.

    The unique thing about this camera though isn’t how it looks – it’s how it stores photos. This camera has a floppy drive built in, and it takes regular old 3.5″ floppy disks. This seems odd, but was actually a really good move for Sony. Flash memory was expensive and new, and required dedicated readers, which made the already high barrier to digital photography higher. But almost everyone had a floppy drive on their home computer, and dozens of floppy disks lying around.

    Each floppy disk holds 1.44MB of data, which translates to about 17 photos in the high-quality setting, probably about 20-24 in normal quality – pretty comparable to film, which held about 24-36 shots per roll.

    I like using this camera a lot – it has fun little sounds, lots of buttons on the back, and it feels tactile to use in a way shooting with a smartphone doesn’t. The bloops and beeps it makes (characteristic of these early 2000’s Sony cameras) makes taking pictures almost feel like a game. Each picture takes a few seconds to save, accompanied by a little animation on-screen while the internal drive grinds and clunks as it writes the data.

    So – how do the photos look? Well, to cut down on cost, they used a sensor that only supports a resolution of 640×480 pixels. To be fair, that’s standard resolution, and most computer monitors’ maximum back in 2001. Nowadays though, they look pretty pixelated.

    Marys Peak.

    Depending on what size screen you’re looking at these on, they might actually look fine – especially if you’re viewing this page on a smartphone.

    The view from Chip Ross Park.

    The camera has a couple of picture modes – the photo above was taken in “Solarize” – which simplifies the color palette to fewer colors, like computers from the 80’s and early 90’s sometimes were.

    Another photo taken with the solarize effect.

    Despite the tiny sensor size and minimal dynamic range, I managed to get some decent photos.

    The 10x optical zoom makes this camera a lot more versatile than it otherwise would be, and it’s surprisingly decent at focusing.

    This photo was taken at 10x zoom. It’s hard sometimes to tell if it didn’t focus, or if the photo is just so low-quality that it’s that blurry.

    This photo shows something really interesting – notice the diamond shaped bokeh (the blurs of light in the background) – this indicates that the aperture in the lens (the hole that varies in size to let in more or less light) is a square shape (or diamond if you wish) – another cost-cutting measure. This would usually be pretty undesirable, but I really like the effect here. Portraits with this would be fun.

    This car would have been much newer when this camera first came out.
    Another view of Marys Peak, the tallest peak in the Oregon Coastal Range.
    Despite the fuzziness, this camera actually does really well with exposure, white balance, and colors.

    Believe it or not, this is actually not the worst digital camera I’ve used! That award would go to the GameBoy Camera. It isn’t even the second worst! That’s a tiny old Vivitar camera that was just awful.

    All for now!

  • Mary’s River Natural Area: Nikon D200

    Chatímanwi, or Mary’s Peak, is the tallest peak in the Oregon Coastal Range. It’s about a 45 minute drive from home, and has beautiful views and flowers in the spring.

    In the middle of moving, I somehow still found time to buy another camera . . . To be fair to myself, I’ve pared my collection from about 30 to only 8 I plan to keep, so I’m doing good.

    The limitations of my compact “prosumer” digital cameras (dynamic range, small sensor size) had me wanting to upgrade to a DSLR, so when I found this Nikon D200 (A high-end APS-C sensor camera from 2008), I jumped at the opportunity to snatch it, batteries, and a lens for $77.

    The white spot at the upper right is lens flare – you can’t see the sun in the photo, but light from it is causing this artifact on the image.

    Today I needed a break from working on moving plans. So I took the D200 out to the Mary’s River natural area, a seasonal wetland about 15 minutes from where I live.

    One advantage of the larger sensor (about 6x larger than my other cameras) is the bokeh–or background blur–I can achieve with it. However, I have to be more careful of focus. Here, you can see the flower isn’t totally crisp.

    In the spring, it has a ton of flowers – now less, but I still managed to see around a dozen different types.

    This blackberry blossom had a ton of little beetles (or weevils?) crawling among the stamen.
    Poison oak was also aplenty. It’s easy to spot at this early stage, because of its red, shiny new leaves. I don’t actually know if I react to it – so far, I’ve either been extraordinarily lucky, or don’t react to its oil.
    Another bug! Notice the sunspots right above the bug – the flat sides are due to the physical shape of the opening in the camera lens. Some people don’t like this effect – I do.
    A weevil friend! You can tell due to its distinct “snoot” and antenna attached halfway up the snoot.
    For this photo, to get everything sharp, I had to use a smaller aperture (the hole in the lens that lets light through) – the smaller the hole, the deeper the area in focus is. The larger the hole, the less deep the area of focus is. Most of the photos above used the largest opening size in the lens.
    There were SO MANY DAISIES. I really wanted to pick a bouquet, but didn’t want to carry it (in addition to my camera and bag) all the way back.
    Wasps are pollinators too, but I still prefer honeybees 😛

    One nice thing about this camera (and its 10MP sensor) is that – as long as the image is in focus enough – I can crop quite a bit. The wasp image above was about 8x larger than what you’re seeing, but due to the higher resolution of the sensor, I can crop in to just what I care about afterwards.

    This old car is hanging halfway over the edge of the river bank, supported by several trees grown through it. It might be a Fiat 850 or something close, but I can’t tell for sure.
    I love the colors and very soft grain of this photo.
    More daisies . . .
    …
    Woah, not a daisy!
    This might be my favorite photo of this whole walk. These flowers are beautiful, and the bokeh, lighting, and colors are fantastic.
    I’m not sure what bird this was.
    Two bugs sharing a daisy!
    Delightfully evil looking plant.
    This bumblebee was a happy accident – I was snapping photos of something else and heard a buzzing near my ear!
    The 2015 Chevrolet Volt isn’t the sleekest of cars, but I like mine.

    All for now!

    All images in this post can be used under the terms of the CC-BY 4.0 license. No other images on this site may be used under this license unless otherwise noted.

  • Tokyo, Japan: 5/4, 5/5

    These two days have also been pretty relaxed. Despite having two weeks here, I’m realizing that I’ve spent a lot of days relaxing. Tomorrow, I plan to take a trip to Mount Nokogiri, which will take the entire day, so saving up on energy isn’t a terrible idea.

    5/4: Just hanging around

    Today, the plan was to go to a cat cafe with one of the other people at the guest house, and then go to an Onsen (a traditional Japanese public bath). However, first I spent some time blogging, and then once we finally left and got to the cat cafe, it was full for the day. So instead, we headed to a sweets shop, and I bought more candy than I’ve gotten in years (my favorite was the strawberry flavored KitKats). After this, we headed to a park and chatted for a while while snacking on the sweets.

    On the way back, we took a route along a little footpath winding through the residential buildings and I took a number of photos.

    The text on this sign translates to “Crime Prevention Promotion District” (top left is “Adachi Ward” and top right is “Metropolitan Police Department”)

    5/5: The plans for 5/4!

    Today’s first task was to figure out what I’m doing for the next few days. I have one free day left – tomorrow, and then Wednesday will be a travel day completely.

    Tomorrow my plan is to take a day trip to Mount Nokogiri (as I think I mentioned at the beginning of this post) – so I packed my bags and planned the route. We will see if I have the energy for 6 hours of train rides tomorrow – or if I stay home.

    However, once I was done with my productive tasks in the morning, I finally headed out to the cat cafe, and this time they had space for us!

    Checking in to the cat cafe was a small process – first, we removed our shoes and put them on a rack (most places in Japan are shoes-off inside, aside from stores). Then, we washed our hands, and went through a small gate. The lady running the cafe gave us slippers to wear, and led us up to a table before taking our coffee orders. Almost immediately, a large orange car sauntered over and flopped down on top of the menu (which we were fine with, of course).

    All around the small room, there were about 8 cats lounging around, mostly napping. The room was quiet and had some soft jazz playing, and there were a few other people around petting the cats. I was quite sleepy (but so were the cats), but it was nice to sit and pet them (or watch them sleep) as we sipped our drinks.

    After an hour at the cat cafe (which cost 1200 yen, about $8.40), we left and headed back to the guesthouse. On the way, I grabbed another vending machine drink (a pineapple soda?) and a green grape flavored popsicle I’d had a few days ago and was craving.

    I also keep seeing these green public payphones – and am tempted to make a call on them, but have nobody to call and no reason to…

    After all this, I headed (finally!) to the Onsen. Japanese Onsen are essentially public baths (IE, you are in male or female rooms with public baths). You walk into the bath room, put your clothes in lockers, rinse off, and then sit in hot-spring water that’s close to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) or cold water that’s closer to 18 Celsius (54 Fahrenheit). You can alternate between these two, or just do one (most people do the hot water, not the cold water). There was also a sauna, but that cost extra.

    I stayed in the baths for about 30 minutes (I would have gone longer, but had plans this evening to make), but they were very relaxing.

    When I first got in, I accidentally got into the electric shock bath (it had nobody already in it, and being shy I went for the bath that was empty – oops!) It’s apparently supposed to exercise your muscles and help you lose weight, by sending small electric currents through the bath (and you) which make your muscles twitch. It certainly made my muscles twitch! I didn’t stay in long enough to notice weight loss effects, though ;P

    An older Japanese man in the (non-electric) bath next to me asked (probably after seeing my face upon realizing I was in the electric bath) if I was ok – to which I replied yes, and he said, pointing knowingly at the bath, “electric!”

    He then asked me where I was from (“USA”), where I was staying in Japan (“Tokyo, at Makoto Guesthouse”) and (after a few failed attempts of me not understanding what he was asking) what my impression of Japan was. I told him I liked it very much. He asked how old I was (“Twenty-four”, though I don’t know if he understood what I meant), then wished me a nice day before climbing out of the bath and going to rinse himself off.

    I would go back to the Onsen if I had time – afterwards, I felt very relaxed and calmed.

    The rest of the evening has been spent in the common area of the guesthouse writing this post and eating dinner. Tomorrow, if I’m feeling up for it, I will head to Mount Nokogiri!

    All for now!

  • Tokyo, Japan: 5/3

    The day before, I and a couple of others decided we wanted to get up early to head to a flea market. It was an hour away, and started at 9AM – so we planned to leave by 8AM, and I woke up at 7AM (which in retrospect isn’t that early, but for my sleep schedule here, it was).

    We managed to stick together on the train, but once we got to the flea market we mostly split up. Inspired by my Gameboy find the day before, a couple of guys went off to look for Gameboys. Micro (a German guy staying in the guest house) wanted to find a Gameboy Advance SP (the kind that looks like a little square and flips up) – and managed to find a Gameboy Advance (not SP) with Pokemon Ruby inside, all for 5000 yen (about $35 USD). After some fiddling with the power switch it worked! And now I want a Gameboy Advance . . . 😅

    We spent about 5 hours at the flea market, and I got a few things:

    • A vintage mechanical watch with an auto-winding feature, which cost 5000 yen ($35 USD), but (as it ends up) runs about 2x faster than it should – something I think can be adjusted?
    • Four Gameboy games:
      • Super Mario Land, 900 yen (in English!)
      • Dr. Mario, 500 yen (Also in English!)
      • “Hamster Club” (translated from Japanese) – as best I can tell this is a game about taking care of hamsters? I got it because it looked cute and was only 500 yen.
      • Pokemon Green (Only available in Japanese, no English version was produced) for 1700 yen.
    • A US Eisenhower $1 coin (for $2.10, which I thought was funny)
    • A couple of old Japanese coins
    • One other item that is a gift for a friend who might read this blog 😛

    After five hours of the flea market, I and another guest-house friend headed to an all-you-can-eat okonomiyaki place.

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    On the way I finally stopped at a vending machine to try it out. I don’t know why I was expecting something more dramatic than what happened – I put two 100 yen coins in, pressed the button for the tea I wanted, and it clunked out of the machine into the tray with my change.
    Japanese architecture is not made for people my height… I occasionally need to duck to get through doorways. I always need to duck on the metro exiting or entering the train, and a few days back, I was in a shop where I needed to hunch over most of the time!
    Okonomiyaki is done a few different ways, but here it comes in a bowl, a mix of greens, meat (optionally), an egg and some other ingredients. Once mixed together, you pour it out onto a hot griddle and shape it into a pancake of sorts before letting it cook for about 10 minutes on each side.
    Once finished, you drizzle them with okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise, then cut them up and eat them in little bites.

    I first had okonomiyaki with the Petersons, since they loved it when they went to Japan. I’ve never had it otherwise, so I was glad for the chance to try it in Japan!

    After this, I was very sleepy – so I went back to the guesthouse (arrived around 7:30) and slept for two hours (till around 9:30) before getting up, grabbing a few snacks at the closest convenience store (convenience stores here are actually quite convenient! They have the normal junk food seen in the US, but also a number of decently inexpensive premade food that’s pretty similar to what you’d find in a grocery store deli in the US). After spending a little time downstairs socializing, I headed to bed.

    All for today! More to come, of course. My time in Japan (and thus my time abroad) is coming to an end.

  • Mending jeans in Tokyo, Japan: 5/2

    Today was a pretty relaxed day. As I’m writing this, I can’t remember what I did most of the day, which probably means I didn’t do much.

    However, I did mend a pair of pants I’d brought! I brought only two pairs of jeans, and realized in Malaysia that they had formed holes at the upper inner corners of the back pockets!

    I’ve been wanting to learn visible mending recently (a technique for mending clothes where the mend is visible and is designed to look neat), so the day before I’d grabbed some sewing supplies at Daiso (a 100 yen store).

    I ended up deciding to use a technique where a thick thread (or sometimes yarn) is used to make a weave over the hole in the fabric. First, I had to rip up the corners of the pockets, since the holes formed right at the place where the pocket corner meets the base fabric of the pants. There was no good way to rip up the stitches, so I resorted to using a kitchen knife. It was slow, but worked!

    A finished mend on the right, the other hole on the left.

    Once done with the weave, I re-stitched the corner of the pocket back up, then began ripping up the other pocket.

    At this point, one of my guesthouse-friends wanted to go to a local cafe, so I went along, and we brought our sewing projects (they’re crocheting coasters for the guest house) and drank lattes (mine a hazelnut latte, theirs a creme brulee latte) while we worked.

    Somehow, the second weave turned out worse than the first (I struggled quite a bit with the first couple rows – I was pulling the needle through a loop the wrong way which resulted in a less defined weave pattern and was messing me up).

    Still, I’m pretty happy with the results! I may try something more adventurous for the future mends, since these are really just woven patches of another color. Some people weave flower designs, or go for full-blown embroidery. I didn’t have the confidence for that this time, maybe next time!

    The coffee shop also had these cute little ceramic animal pins. I really liked the hedgehog one!

    As it turns out, these jeans will need more mending soon – there’s a hole quickly forming in the crotch area, and smaller holes beginning to form in the other two pocket corners, with signs of imminent holes at the belt loops… Oh well – at least I know how to do it now!

    And yep, that’s basically all I did! I think I also took a nap somewhere in there …

  • Tokyo, Japan: 5/1

    Today I did a lot!

    I woke up early for my interview (for real this time), which went well!

    Then I headed back to the guesthouse to drop my luggage off after checking out of the hotel. I wasn’t allowed to hang out at the guesthouse till after 5PM, so I headed back out to Akihabara, the “Electric City” district. I’d already been, but I wanted to do more exploring, and potentially buy a piece of retro technology for myself.

    On the way to the subway station, I saw two little dogs sitting out in the sun in front of a shop. Seeing me grin and stop to take out my phone for a photo, the Japanese lady who ran the shop waved me over, so I stooped to pet them.

    They were so soft!
    The subway was actually quite empty at this time of day! Normally there are so many people around that I don’t feel comfortable taking photos.
    There are a lot of really cool old neon signs in Akihabara, which I imagine would look awesome at night.

    After getting to Akihabara, I explored another set of electronics department stores I hadn’t gone into yet.

    I did find a shop with a bunch of older digital and analog cameras, and was very tempted to get some – but most weren’t that interesting (or were overpriced).

    I did find the same model as the camera I’d originally brought that stopped working (momentarily)! But it was like $65, which is far more than I want to pay.

    It is in muuuch nicer condition than mine is though…
    Of course, there were Nintendo consoles also.

    I didn’t end up buying anything – it turns out some of the shops I was thinking of buying from were closed (It’s Golden Week here in Japan – the longest vacation most Japanese people get, so a lot of places are closed while the owners take vacation). That was better anyway – I wasn’t super excited about anything I saw, and I’m headed to a flea market on Saturday, so need some spending cash for that.

    Next I headed to Ueno Park, a large park in the middle of the Ueno district in Tokyo. In the middle of the park is an old Buddhist temple, but it’s surrounded by ponds and other greenery.

    DUCK BOATS! I told myself that if they were less than 1000 yen, I’d get one…

    The duck boats were 800 yen (for a swan one), 700 yen for a basic covered boat, and 500 for a rowboat, all for 30 minutes. So I got a covered boat!

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    My legs did not fit in the boat well, but I managed regardless to make a decent loop around the lake. It was fun, though would have been a little easier with another person (and shorter legs).

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    After this, I walked over to the Buddhist temple, and explored around it a bit.

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    After this, I headed across another bridge across the pond and stumbled upon a small flea market. And I found a lot of cool things!

    • An Original Gameboy for 800 yen (About $5.60)
    • A Gameboy camera for 500 yen ($3.50)
    • A Japanese Yoshi game for 500 yen (Still $3.50)
    • A cute ceramic cup for Mo for 300 yen ($2.10)
    • A pair of vintage sunglasses that I’m hoping don’t make me look too much like a serial killer for 2000 yen ($14)
    • A brass whistle with a Nissan label on it (gonna carry it on my keychain to get people’s attention if needed – another guy tested it for 500 yen (STILL $3.50!)
    I’d forgotten how difficult the Gameboy’s screen is to see, let alone photograph. Anyway, trust that the photos from the Gameboy camera look a little better in real life. Only a little.
    Unfortunately, immediately after getting the Gameboy to turn on and boot the Yoshi game I had to relinquish control to Izara, one of the other guesthouse guests, who has become very invested in the game. The sound doesn’t work, but if you plug in a pair of headphones it does.

    On my way back to the subway station, I snapped a few more photos in the sunset glow.

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    I tried drawing this flower later in the evening. There is a reason I have not posted the drawing.
    A majestic tree and gate
    An older metro car that was sitting in the neighborhood I walked through.
    This kindly-looking old man was taking a smoke break when I walked by. The streetcar above was behind him and I tried to sneak a photo of him, but it looks like he noticed (and didn’t mind)
    Little planters of flowers outside people’s houses are really common here, which is really cute!
    A lot of Honda Supercub mopeds around! I’m pretty sure driving a Moped would be illegal for me here, but I also haven’t seen any places to rent them.

    After this, I hung out in the common area and shared my finds with the other guests. I also got sushi at a conveyor belt place down the road, but forgot to take photos.

    All for today!

  • Hotel Meigetsu, Tokyo, Japan: 4/30

    I did very little this day.

    1st) I slept in

    1.5th) I thought I had an interview, but it was actually on the 1st, so I went back to bed

    2nd) I slept more

    3rd) I walked to a local cafe, and got curry & rice for breakfast (at 2 PM)

    4th) I walked back to the hotel, but on the way, stopped at 7-11 to grab snacks

    5th) I was sleepy so I went back to sleep

    6th) I woke up and ate my 7-11 snack, and worked on something, I think – I don’t remember

    7th) I went back to bed.

    That’s all! 😀

  • Tokyo, Japan: 4/29

    Today was a nice day! First up, I met up with Joyce Peterson for brunch.

    I had an acai bowl. For Japan, this was pretty expensive – almost $10!

    After this, we walked around Yoyogi Park, which is a large park with lots of picnic space. Next to the park is a forest with a large Buddhist temple in the middle and multiple large Japanese gates. It’s a big tourist attraction, so we started exploring, then when Joyce had to make another appointment, I kept exploring. It was really nice to see her!

    Within the forest there was a botanical garden which cost (only 500 yen!) to enter. Lots of flowers, ponds, and even some bonsai!

    One of the entrances to the gardens.

    (I do wonder how old these are… Some bonsai take years to perfect, and still require maintenance. These looked quite impressive!)

    This one wasn’t part of the gardens officially – it was growing along the path.

    There was an ancient well (spring) inside the park too that was less impressive than it was made out to be – just a little circular pond of water flowing into a creek that fed one of the ponds in the park. Before I could see the well, I had to wait in a line of people for about 5 minutes 😛

    Outside in the forest there were a number of (attractions? things? monuments?) including this one with a ton of large paper lanterns.

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    Outside the park was an area of food vendors and a young Japanese guy beatboxing – I didn’t get a picture of him, but the sounds he was making were actually quite impressive.

    I can’t tell for sure, but it looks like this guy was smiling towards me as I took the photo.
    This little weird electric car was next to a restaurant outside the park. It’s a single-seater, probably for doing food delivery.
    This little blue Kei car was cute.
    Mariokart? O.O
    I forget the Olympics are this old!

    After the park and exploration, I stopped at an “American Burger” place to see whether it lived up to the name.

    I got a chicken based sandwich, and it was actually one of the best chicken sandwiches I’ve had, probably top three. It doesn’t look it, but with the jalepenos and fried chicken, it was delicious. (Maybe I was pretty hungry too…)

    I was pretty tired of walking around (and just tired too – still catching up on sleep), so I went to my hotel (not the guesthouse – I had only booked for 6 nights, and when I went to extend my stay, the 29th and 30th were booked – so I got a different hotel for those two nights and booked the guesthouse again from the 1st through the 7th).

    It was a private bed, but unfortunately it was also a very basic room, the bed squeaked each time I moved a centimeter, and the only light in the room made me feel like a lab rat. But, it was a place to sleep!

    All for today! This post was kind of low effort, but honestly so was half of this day, so…