If you are ever in the Mt. Fuji area, make sure to budget a few hours
for the Fujinomiya International Flower Park, the Fujinomiyama Kokusai Hanaen.

More from the Fujinomiyama
Kokusai Hanaen.

Late model cameraphones have replaced digital cameras for some folks.
Here at the flower park, a couple of older ladies just use their 2
megapixel cameraphones to document their day.

This one is Mt. Fuji from the Asagiri area.

The dashi do battle…

The dashi are all lined up at sunset at the Aki Matsuri.

The procession of dashi at the Aki Maturi.

Fall festival: the Aki Matsuri.

There was something about this scene, the old gravestones surrounded by
the “kitchen garden”, and the Circle K convenience sign right behind
it… Now that’s Japan, I thought to myself.

Here the rice has just been harvested nearby, and is hung up to dry.

The Rainbow Mountain Blend gave me a sort of reggae mood when I looked
at it, the Wonda Shot & Shot was advertised as “a fine taste for over
30s” – I am well over 30 now so I thought I would qualify, and Boss
World Executive Blend made me feel real important.
In the end I chose the World Executive Blend, based solely on the taste
I assure you, it had nothing to do with my inflated sense of
self-importance.

Next to this batch of jidou hanbaiki or vending machines is an
ISDN phone. ISDN has been available on phone booths since the early
90s. These phones have an analog jack and an ISDN digital jack, make
sure you plug your laptop into the right one or Bad Things will happen.
Most ISPs can accept your connection as an ISDN connection for faster
speeds.

Of course, wi-fi and broadband/fiber-to-the-home have diminished the
importance and necessity of an ISDN connection, but at one time ISDN
was all the rage.

Did you know that the MP3 format was created to send audio over a dual
channel ISDN line? Using two 64 Kbps ISDN channels to create a single
128 Kbps, it was possible to transmit high-fidelity MP3 encoded audio
to a radio station, which changed the music industry in a way that was
not entirely planned for…

No set of pictures from Japan would be complete without some jidou
hanbaiki or vending machines. There may be as many as 5.5 million
of them in Japan, requiring the energy output of the equivalent of one
nuclear power plant to power all these machines. With more than 50
nuclear power plants currently operating in Japan, you could say that
2% of them are necessary just for the jidou hanbaiki.

More majestic and powerful than the picture conveys.

Me and the little angel enjoy a walk at sunset. Nice camerawork, mama.