Fishing in San Diego

富士山 - Mount Fuji...

...as seen from Kawaguchiko (河口湖)

Important things in life

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.
So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up the remaining space. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous ‘yes’.

The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the space between the sand particles. The students laughed.

Now, said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. ”
“The golf balls are the important things - your family, your children, your health, your friends, your favourite passions - things that if everything else were lost, and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else - the small stuff.

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take your partner out to dinner. Go out with friends. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the washing. Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented.The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of beers.”

乾杯！

Just landed

A beautiful sunset over Narita airport.

Notre Dame de Paris

Notre Dame at sunset is breathtaking, isn't it?

Drawbacks of photography

Photography is a very interesting art. Sometimes, in order to get a good shot, you have to take the picture from an unusual angle. So it might happen that, trying to take a nice picture of Montmartre with the people, you would like to lay on the street, and use a very low angle.
The problem is that in this way most of the people do not see you, so they just stand between you and your target.


Or, as in this case, they almost sit on your lens... :-)

Abbesses

Abbesses is one of the few deep stations of Paris métro, at 30 metres below ground. To get out of the station, you can take these wonderful decorated stairs.








Too bad that some stupid idiot decided that it was cool to write on it.

Transmettano?

Japanese are not the only ones in the world to use strange Italian (itarian?) words.

Enoshima - 江ノ島

Enoshima (江の島) is a small island, about 4 km in circumference, at the mouth of the Katase River, which flows into Sagami Bay in Japan.
Part of the city of Fujisawa, it is linked to the Katase section of the same city on the mainland by a 600 meter-long bridge.
Adjacent to the closest beach to Tokyo and Yokohama, the island and the nearby coast are the hub of a popular resort area.




Enoshima is the center of Shonan, a resort area along the coast of Sagami Bay known for its scenic beauty.


Katase-Enoshima Station (片瀬江ノ島駅), where I dropped off, is designed to evoke the image of Ryūgū-jō (竜宮城, or Dragon Palace), the underwater dwelling in the Urashima Taro fable.

花火, or flower of fire - III

And this one? What shape could it be?

花火, or flower of fire - II

In these ones, though, it's more fire (火) than flower (花).

花火, or flower of fire

The word 花火 is translated as "fireworks" in English, but it is actually composed by the ideogram 花 (flower) and 火 (fire). Which is much closer to their actual appearance, at least in the pictures below ^_^ Don't you agree?

Impressive, aren't they?

少し混んでいた - Slightly crowded

Tonight there was a nice fireworks event near Ichikawa and Koiwa, between Tokyo and Chiba prefecture (see the map).

They were saying there were about 1'300'000 people watching... and looking at the crowd at the station, it is not so hard to believe.


It was also nice to look at the crowd looking at the fireworks. I was impressed by the amount of people using their mobile phone to take the pictures. Nice how things are changing, isn't it?

逗子の花火大会 - Fireworks in Zushi

This year about 7000 fireworks were used to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Zushi city's 花火大会. Zushi is a small city close to the more famous Kamakura, about 60km South from Tokyo. This map shows the place the pictures have been taken from. The gran finale, lasted 10 minutes, was incredibly impressive, with the fireworks used to mark the music. Absolutely magnificient!

A colorful palm


Chaos.


A nice trio.


Another nice trio. Too bad for the pole just in the center of the frame.



A bouquet

Ice-skating...

...or simply working?


Not the most comfortable kind of shoes, are they? ^_^



The hairstyle was also quite interesting... :-) I wonder how much time it would take to get ready for this photo session ^_^