[jules' pics] 7/31/2010 04:18:00 AM

Very young baby Japanese monkey, Kamikochi, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Since the diet includes anything that can be scraped from the seashore, innards (gizzards, faces, beaks, raw liver, guts...), hornets, barely cooked chicken, raw egg, whale and horse, I tend to laugh at the apparent distress caused by the suggestion of eating anything considered cute and cuddly. Monkeys are thus off the menu and so the troupe that lives near the busy Kamikochi nature trail coexist happily with humans in an way that it is hard to imagine in the UK. Since people do nothing to the monkeys apart from photograph them, they pass by, apparently unbothered, at close quarters. This teeny tiny baby was photographed with my 60mm macro, not a long telephoto!

[Kamikochi is where many walks in the North Japan Alps start and finish.]

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 7/31/2010 04:18:00 AM

[jules' pics] Let's mountain life

Japanese mountain culture may not be for everyone.

5am: raw egg and seaweed breakfast

6:00am: high altitude toilet (3000m)

On the bright side, I wrecked my boots, so we had a good reason to attend the first day opening of the newly relocated mountain shop, Kamoshika, in Yokohama. Great shop. Lovely new blue nubuck boots!

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 7/30/2010 01:19:00 AM

[jules' pics] photo.jpg

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Since summer arrived we have gone to the mountains. Same wifi hut as
last year - the only one we have found...fortunately. That's famous
Yarigatake in the distance.

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 7/22/2010 11:25:00 PM

[jules' pics] 7/20/2010 08:38:00 PM

House in the paradise of Kamakura, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Often, when I walk past this house on the way home from the station in Kamakura, I take its picture. This time James didn't recognise it, and when the actual dwelling was pointed out, complained that, "It looks nothing like that". What a great compliment to the picktur taker!

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 7/20/2010 08:38:00 PM

[jules' pics] 7/19/2010 11:36:00 PM

frog, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Since yesterday was Marine Day everyone obediently went to the beach, where (apparently) you couldn't see sand for the bodies. We visited the cool shady trees instead, where we met about as many frogs as people.

I wonder what make of frog this is. There is a frog on the internets that is handily called the Japanese Brown Frog which does looks similar... [Update: thanks to andrewt. The frog is likely to be a Japanese brown frog, Rana japonica.]

I didn't crop the image since I like the leafy green border, so you might want to view bigger (click here to do that).

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 7/19/2010 11:36:00 PM

[jules' pics] 7/18/2010 12:10:00 AM

Beautiful Kamakura, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Summer has come, the sky is blue, and beauty is all around.

What slightly troubles me is that the Japan adapted me can happily walk round in temperatures that make the partly metal Nikon N80s hot to the touch. Well, the one caveat to my adaption is that I am not actually a camel, and so the happiness continues as long as I can drink about 500ml an hour.

Camera snobs poo poo lightweight plastic cameras - but they win in either hot or cold weather!

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 7/18/2010 12:10:00 AM

Hotting up?

Following on from this post, the latest headlines on hot global temperatures are a bit surprising to me. The Torygraph reports that the first half of the year was the hottest Jan-June on record, surpassing even 1998. The headline to that article is forecasting a new record for the whole year too, but the person quoted seems rather less confident of that. This is all based on the NCDC analysis, not HadCRUT which I've bet on. Neither is it GISS which has the well-known polar extrapolation, though, so I'm not sure why it is quite so hot. The pattern of temperature anomalies on the Grauniad page also doesn't really look much like an ENSO pattern (to my inexpert eye at least), with warming pretty much everywhere apart from the Eastern Pacific.

[jules' pics] 7/15/2010 10:19:00 PM

caterpillar - kemushi, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

num num...

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 7/15/2010 10:19:00 PM

[jules' pics] 7/14/2010 08:51:00 PM

Shinjuku station, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Shinjuku station, considered the busiest in the world, is much much more exciting than Yokohama station. The most exciting thing about it is getting lost. Even if you think you know what you are doing, attempting to cross from one side to the other without going through a ticket barrier can be a disorientating and distressing experience, although the sense of achievement upon arrival at the intended destination before closing time makes it worth the agony. This photo was taken near the barriers to one of the private lines. People were walking unusually fast. Probably they were trying to look as if they knew where they were going.

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 7/14/2010 08:51:00 PM

[jules' pics] 7/13/2010 08:45:00 PM

NEX at Yokohama, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

The Narita Express, the airport train you use when you visit us, has new rolling stock which is extra super shiny. Combined with the recent doubling in width of the platform gives a new big city impression for those arriving in Yokohama for the first time.

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 7/13/2010 08:45:00 PM