Hydrangea, A June Flower

Hydrangea bloom in June in Tokyo. Here is white one. This one is unusual because its clumps of flowers are not round like most hydrangea. (The blue flower is meadow sage.)

It seems there are hydrangea peeking over most houses' walls.

Or near their entrances.

Even this shop has hydrangea in a pot outside its door. (The pink flowers next to the closed shutter.)

Father's Day in Japan

Cut sunflowers were sold for Father's Day this year. We always get our Papa sunflowers. And businessman's socks.

Kids Web Japan--Father's Day

Mt. Fuji Today

We were surprised to see Mt. Fuji this morning from the roof garden. We were also surprised to see there was still snow on top.

The other picture was taken with the zoom lens. This is how it looks from our roof garden.

Cucumber Pepsi

Sometimes there are drinks, snacks and other products that appear only during a certain season. This is a new drink by the Pepsi Company. It is for summer. The color looks cool.

It's called "Ice Cucumber". That's its flavor, too. Does it taste like cucumber? Maybe. It's tasty.

School Project: Potato Plant

There were teacher and parent meetings at Little Brother's school this week. I took this picture of their potato plants. They are measuring them and writing a report about them. do a blog search to find more posts about school. I have posted other pictures of a Japanese classroom.

Drugstore

This drugstore has a lot of stuff outside. They put it out every morning and then pile it inside at night. There are many different items but mostly boxes of tissue and rolls of toilet paper.

Some of it is put outside even if it rains. It is covered in a tarp. This is the same store. The picture was taken from across the street. Click to enlarge.

Shocking Pink Flower

This potted flower was outside a public bath It looks like a flower that great-grandfather had. His plant had a white flower and it bloomed only once a year at night. Perhaps under a full moon. That's how I remember it, anyway.

A morning glory frame was put around it.

This is the plant's leaf. It is trimmed in red.

Sunset in Our Garden

Sunlight always finds its way through. At sunset at this time of year, there's a slant of light that makes its way between the houses into our garden.

We have no lawn of grass. Just dirt and mold and moss.

More light.

See the spots of light? On our roof, the neighbor's balcony, the palm tree and bay tree. Can you tell from which direction the sun is coming?

Onions Drying

Some onions have already been pulled. These are drying in
this greenhouse.

These first three pictures were taken in the morning.

These next two pictures were taken in the late afternoon. See the difference in color?

Onion flower or seed pod.

Greenhouse From A Distance

This is another picture of the greenhouse of onions. It was taken from across the street. Click to enlarge. The greenhouse is on the right.

Ashes and Snow, The Nomadic Museum

We went to the photo exhibition called Ashes and Snow in Odaiba, Tokyo today.

It is called The Nomadic Museum because it will move from city to city.

The whole building will travel with the exhibition. It was designed by Shigeru Ban. It is made out of old train cars.

The people with the umbrellas are walking toward the entrance. The windows on the right are plastic. That is where the shop is located.

Here is the ticket office.

You walk into the exhibition to the left of the white curtains.

This wall is covered in old tea bag paper. When you enter the exhibition, the first thing you see as you turn the corner is an amber sheet draped from the ceiling to the floor. It is made of tea bags, too. The ceilings are really high. There are huge pillars. They are made out of rolled paper!

Cameras are not allowed in exhibitions, but you can see the photos on the website for Ashes and Snow. There, you can also see how the photos were displayed. It was a very nice atmosphere. There were wooden plank pathways with river rocks from Africa along the sides. Nice music playing, amber lights. For us today, we had a little thunder and lots of rain on the tin roof.

There was a shop located at the exit. Here is the book we bought. The paper is all handmade.

The bag was made out of recycled paper. It had this stamp on it.

Rainbow Bridge

We had to go over Rainbow Bridge to get to Odaiba.

We veered off to the left to get on the bridge.

On the bridge.

A view from the bridge. That "steeple" is the top of Tokyo Tower.

Another view from the bridge.

The train line leading to Teleport station near the exhibition.

The stairway leading from the Teleport train station down to the exhibition.

Cocooning

These first two pictures were taken at night. I didn't want to use the flash because it might disturb the silk worm. So, the color is off.

The silk worms stopped eating. That is a sign they are ready to cocoon. Big Sister cut pieces of cardboard to section off corners of a box. This one sat for a while in the small space. She started to sling her head back and forth for a while.

Then she attached fiber from one side of the box to the piece of cardboard that Big Sister had propped inside.

Before we went to bed, we noticed she had made a sling for herself. That's her rear end up in the air. Look at all the fibers.

Here's another angle.

This is what we saw the next morning. You can still see the worm.

Here is a different angle that highlights the "sling" that is holding the cocoon.

The other worm was wandering around while the other one was busy making a cocoon. She must not have liked the corner Big Sister made for her.

The cocoon on day two.

The other worm still hasn't started. It was the bigger worm. It seemed to be healthier than the other. It ate and ate and ate. Now it's late. Or rather, later than the other silk worm.