Brothers at scenic spots around Hokkaido, about 2005

These first two were taken by my husband, near Niseko somewhere:

Five-colored Lake Onetto:

At Japan's highest mountain pass:

Trip to Kurashiki, March 2012

Photos? - Hakodate, May 2012

I'm thinking of dusting off this blog and posting some photos now and then.  Testing...
These are from Hakodate, in May 2012.

Hakodate's varied past -- Christian church and Buddhist temple.

Spring flowers in the temple grounds.

Pic

My younger son, age 1.

Random pics

Here is big son, age 22 mos.:

Here is little son, about age 12 mos.:

The earthquake

I have wanted to write about our earthquake experience, though we were so safe up here in Hokkaido. I will try to write briefly. This is just to record what it was like for us up here in Hokkaido, far from the disaster. I will write in bullet form to try and stay brief!

• I was at work, sitting at my desk in the teacher's room of a school in Sapporo. Many kids were in their classrooms getting ready to go, or out in the hallways cleaning. The earthquake started at 2:46 p.m., but for us in Hokkaido it would have been slightly later.
• The shaking was very large and side-to-side, clearly a very powerful earthquake, and it went on for approx. 5 minutes. It seemed to just go on and on. I was on the 2nd floor of the 3-story school building. I was not afraid for my health as such, since the shaking was not violent - but it was clearly a "big event" and there was a lot of worry, consternation, shouting, etc.

Garden Flowers and Fruits 2010

I am making preparations to start covering more topics from my hobby, family history! In the meantime, here is another project I've been working on...

Nearly all the flowers and other plants of note that appeared in our garden during the previous year, in a slide show:

http://s1128.photobucket.com/albums/m498/KDixit/Garden%20flowers%20and%20fruits%202010/?albumview=slideshow

The slide show is arranged from spring (April, here in Hokkaido) to the beginning of winter (December). [UPDATE: it is arranged in alphabetical order, for some reason.  I will try to fix it.]  I don't know many flower names, and enjoyed looking them up for the slide show! Please comment if you know any flower names that I missed - I would like to learn more :)

Most of them were planted by our landlords, and appear year after year!! A few are wild, and I planted the annual vegetable plants (potato, tomato, green chili). Also, a few things did not get photographed (by mistake), like asparagus and edamame (beans), and in other cases the photo quality was too poor (a few flowers, but not major ones). Our garden does get very overgrown each summer, since I don't have time to weed much, but anyway, what work I do manage to do is very enjoyable and educational (for me as well as our children, though the education for them comes mainly at the dinner table, as they don't like to help with gardening)!!