Category: Journal
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The umbrellas of Kyoto.
A cold rainy umbrella day in Kyoto. A stay inside and eat chocolate muffins day. A double shot espresso day. But first, some pics.
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The bamboo mosh pit.
It’s Monday. A public holiday in Japan. The objective was to explore the bamboo forrest at Arashiyama before the anticipated crowds arrived. Narrator: unfortunately the crowds had a similar objective. And so it was. If you were to collect the people from every mosh pit at every concert in the world and bring them all…
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Koushouji Temple.
Randomly stumbled into the beautiful little village of Uji this morning, and then even more randomly walked up a path that led to Koshouji temple. It turns out that this is a pretty significant Zen temple, being the first Soto Zen monastery founded by Dogen Zenji in 1233. Not too touristy. A working temple. My…
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Plastic truth
Sadly, the truth is that for decades we have been fed the lie and the illusion that recycling and consumer responsibility will solve the plastic crisis. But the reality and the truth is that this crisis was never about waste management or recycling—it has always been about production and consumption. The fossil fuel industry and…
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Kyoto at night.
Arrived at our Kyoto digs late in the afternoon. Out to walk the crowded (so many westerners!)streets. First objective: relocating a favourite vegan cafe. The writer Pico Iyer said this of Kyoto: “I loved the quiet places in Kyoto, the places that held the world within a windless moment. Inside the temples, Nature held her…
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Enchantment.
Enchantment is small wonder magnified through meaning, fascination caught in the web of fable and memory. It relies on small doses of awe, almost homeopathic: those quiet traces of fascination that are found only when we look for them. It is the sense that we are joined together in one continuous thread of existence with…
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Kanazawa station.
Camera: iPhone 17 promax Up early today. Shinkansen to Kyoto. A few hours on my favourite train to kick back and watch the country unfold. Just enough time to hunt down a convenience store egg and mayo sandwich with the crusts cut off (addicted). Perhaps a bottle of ice cold peach water. So many people…
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Streetscene Kanazawa.
Camera: Fujifilm XT5. Wandering the narrow streets of the old Samurai district. Pour-over coffee (single origin) and fat fluffy pancakes with sliced banana and chocolate drizzle. Stuttered convo with the female owner of the cafe via Google Translate got me extra whipped cream for making an effort. All this wakes me up with a high…
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