Mountain butterflies - and a bee.

I don't know why, but they are so much more amazing seen on the mountain, than in the butterfly house. Can anyone tell me what kind the amazing big brown and white one is?

James is now making serious moves to try and adopt my new RX100 camera! It could be a tough fight. It was pretty cool carrying 1.5kg less stuff and the 20Mpixel resolution is phenomenal.

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fire-flowers

Cancelled last year due to self-restraint, last night was Kamakura hanabitaikai (fireworks).

As the sun set, a zillion people gathered on the beach

The Japanese don't need telling to be self-restrained. It was all very calm - these girls hardly moved during this 8 second exposure.

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Wisteria muncher

I wonder what he or she will be when they grow up.
Evening:

Morning: There are now several tendrils free of leaves.

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Not a flower

I expect there are more flowers to blog, but then I saw this car outside Motomachi Starbucks (of course). Perhaps the reader will tell me if it is fundamentally a special car, or just a specially decorated normal car.

Perhaps the reason for all the funny cars in that part of Yokohama is that, in the city, cars are pretty useless if used only for transport. Here is something far more useful - the "one touch picnica". Those who care to check the EXIF, will see that poor James has crumbled, and bought me a nice new P&S camera. He made me wait until it had gone down by 10,000¥ and the Panasonic vapourware competitor had been announced, but my argument of taking it on our upcoming trip to the mountains seemed to finally tip the scales. With a minor alteration(*), it just fits in the Goretex case I made for the S100. Note handy usefulness of EGU badge lanyards!
(*It is a slightly tight fit, so I sewed some ribbon to the outside of the case which enables it to be eased over the lens. Will just have to wait and see if the tightness/friction causes the case to wear out too fast.)

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Aliens

While we're on purpley theme, here is a photo from December that I seem to have forgotten to blog...

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Employment Opportunity!!!

Come and work with this nice man (and me) in lovely Japan! The position is part of a big new multi-centre project which has just got its English name, ICA-RUS: "Integrated Climate Assessment - Risks, Uncertainties and Society". There is the opportunity to work with many of the most active climate scientists in Japan as well as scary James. Actually James is the nice one - and he only uses his scathing expressions on me! The working conditions are pretty good too...

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Agapanthus

I used to call these plants "those oniony things", but now I can never forget their real name, since my mother-in-law corrected me. These days I bewilder poor James by squealing "agapanthus" from the back of the tandem every few minutes (they are very common flowers).

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Another orange flower

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orange flower

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Mango Passion Tea Frappuccino with Mango Pudding

It is nicer than the chocolate cookie crumble frappuccino with white chocolate pudding, but, even so, one shouldn't order a tall unless it is to share. I'm not sure that these are exclusive to Japan, but putting gooey solids in drinks is normal practice...

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