Jeffrey E.F. Friedl's Blog, page 38

Entrance to Kyoto’s Jojuji Temple at its Fall Best

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Coming and Going

entrance to the Jojuji Temple, Kyoto Japan

December, 2012

浄住寺(京都市嵐山）、2012年12月
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A couple of weeks ago during a scooter ride around western Kyoto, I came across
a temple that I recalled having visited a couple of years ago. Its entrance path is quite nice.

Here's how it looked two weeks ago:

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October 9th, 2014

二週間前（2014年10月9日)

I'll have to visit again in a month when the colors are hitting their peak, but until then,
here are some more views from Dec 1, 2012:

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Sundrenched

「太陽の降り注ぐ」？
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Looking Back

門、途中までから








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Dead Giveaway

The smudge of red reveals who joined me on that visit. It was the same trip two years ago with the
intense rainbow over Arashiyama
a pretty path,
a bunch of
whimsical carvings,
among others.

Teppanyaki Lunch at The Garden Okazaki in Eastern Kyoto

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Private Room for Five

at the Hotel Okura's The Garden Okazaki

ホテルオークラの「ザ・ガーデン岡崎」での鉄板焼きランチ

Kyoto Japan

Fumie's folks took us out for lunch the other day, after a morning event
to mark the 100th day of
Fumie's dad's mom passing during the summer (she was 99½). The meal was teppanyaki
at The Garden Okazaki,
similar to
the exquisite meal at another local hotel that I wrote about in the spring.

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Nice View

and we each got a big cloth apron








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First Appetizer

shrimp and various fishes








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Waiting in the Wings

for later courses








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Starting With the Grill








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Shrimp Appetizer








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With Sauce








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And a Sprig of Green








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More Waiting in the Wings








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Butter

and fish and veggies








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A Touch of Seasoning








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Layering

rice patty, grilled fish, veggies








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Sauces








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Raw Garlic








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Soon Became Garlic Chips








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Bring on the Beef








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Pepper








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Lunch is Served

my medium-rare steak is done; mediums are still on the grill








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Rice and Beef Snippets...








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... and Lots of Minced Garlic

made for a very nice garlic rice








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Dessert








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Anthony's Milk Tea

So, the big question is whether this one was better than the one before,
and we were split, so it's probably that they're quite comparable.

Fixing Lightroom Problems Caused by the POODLE Security Vulnerability

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No Poodles Here

(wow, beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder)

At a gallery in Carmel California, in 2000

A security weakness dubbed “POODLE” has recently been discovered in how
internet-connected applications make secure connections, and this is having
an increasingly-detrimental impact on Lightroom. Thankfully, it's easy
enough to fix for most folks, and this post tells you how.

POODLE
manifests itself in that certain kinds of secure connections are no longer
quite as secure as they're supposed to be, so until you fix this for your
Internet-connected applications, your data may be at risk. But the secondary problem is that, until fixed on your system, your
Internet-connected applications like Lightroom may experience seemingly
random network errors as more and more remote sites, in an effort to
protect their users' data, completely disable support for the insecure
protocol.

(A tertiary problem is that folks running into these networking problems while
using my Lightroom plugins blame
the plugin and inundate me with bug reports.)

How to fix for Mac OS X:

Install Apple's latest security update (which you should be doing anyway). That's it. You're done.

How to fix for Windows:

If you use any of my
Lightroom plugins, the easiest way to fix it is to upgrade to the
latest version of the plugin. As of versions that I released yesterday, all
my plugins do a one-time check to see whether you're vulnerable, and if so,
pop up a dialog that offers to fix it for you:

Just click on the [fix now] button and the plugin will fix the problem
(disable SSL support in Internet Options, and enable TLS support.).

If you don't use any of my plugins, or if you didn't fix it the one time
the dialog (perhaps unexpectedly) popped up, you can use my free my System
Information plugin to check/fix your system any time:

The [how to fix] button brings you to the same dialog shown earlier,
offering to fix it immediately for you.

In either case, the plugin fixes applications like Internet Explorer and
Lightroom that use the base Windows connection library. Some third-party
browsers do their own networking, so must be fixed separately. If you have
custom browsers on Windows, see this
page. (That page also explains how to do the base fix the plugins do,
in case you don't want to have the plugins do it for you.)

Odd Things in Western Kyoto

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Huh?

The other day while scootering around western Kyoto, I paid a visit to something that
looked odd in Google Maps, to see what it actually was.

It seemed to be a building of cube rooms...

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It turns out to be an assisted-living nursing home named “Life in Kyoto”
(ライフ・イン京都) with 226 units ranging
from 350 ft² to 920 ft². It seems a bit pricey to move in... of the four units
currently available, the largest is a scant 445 ft², but costs $350,000 for a single person
to move in, or $470,000 for a couple. As far as I can tell, that's just a fee... you're not getting
any equity.

On top of that, there's a monthly fee of about $1,000/month for a couple, and $650/month per person
for meal service (about $21/day for three meals, which seems like a good deal).

You have to be 55 or older to move in. If you're like my grandmother-in-law
who passed away this summer at 99, the $350,000 fee to move in at 55 prorates to $8,000 a year. If you move in at 65 and live to
83 (the average life expediency in Japan), that works out to almost $20,000/year. I guess, like everything in life, it's a gamble.

The view is nice... here's a shot from the neighboring building, with Kyoto Tower about 7km (4¼ miles) away:

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Not far away, while slowly puttering through a very residential area on the western edge of the city, I came across a tiny park,
large enough to accommodate only a few cars were it a parking lot. But it was a park, and it accommodated exactly one 1911-era
steam locomotive:

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Circa 1911 O&K Type C1 Steam Locomotive

at “SL Park” (SL公園), Kyoto Japan







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Information Display

what's left of it







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Inside

This is the unsurprising answer to last week's A Black-on-Black “What am I?” Quiz.

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Choo-Choo







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Odd to find this tucked away in a fringe residential area. It calls to mind the one-man kamikaze submarine that used to be on display not
far away in Arashiyama. Here's a photo of a marble monument that I took seven years ago:

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Type 10 Kaiten One-Man Kamikaze Sub

The sub (torpedo really) itself used to actually be on display
here in this pretty little garden off on one side of a
restaurant, but it was moved to Hiroshima. There was also a crudely-carved painted wooden sign:

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I noted in a blog post in 2011 that the marble plaque had been removed as well.

Anyway, one can certainly come across some odd things in western Kyoto.

Finding a Rainy 25-Year-Old Memory on Miyajima Island

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Maniden Hall (right) and Main Hall (left)

at the Daishoin Temple (大聖院), Miyajima Japan

During past weekend's trip to Miyajima Island,
the impending typhoon
brought back memories of my first trip to the island, in 1989 after having
been in Japan for only a month. A friend at work (Andy Krantz) had a nice
trip planned for the week-long Obon holidays the country takes every
August, and kindly invited me along. On this trip we stopped by Miyajima Island,
which I knew nothing about (at the time I knew nothing about Japan except
Perl Harbor and Sony).

On that visit I certainly would have seen the famous shrine gate,
but I don't remember it at all. My only memory of that visit 25+ years ago
is of a small gazebo at a temple where one can shake a rope to jingle bells
to awaken the gods' attention to your petitions, I guess (as described here).
During the visit, we had the island to ourselves because it was nonstop
torrential rain... just amazing amounts of water descending from the sky in
nonstop torrents. I remember the little gazebo because it provided a short
respite from the rain. We shook the rope. It was probably my first visit to
a temple of any kind.

So with this memory in mind this past weekend, I wondered where that
gazebo was. I don't recall having seen it on any subsequent trip to the
island (here and here), so I kept more of
an active eye out this time.

Part of my wanderings brought to the Daisho-in Temple, tucked in the
mountains 15 minutes from the famous shrine gate. With buildings sprinkled
all up the side of a mountain, there are many levels and stairways. Every
time I came to the top of a stairway I thought I might find my gazebo, but
I reached the top without finding it...

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End of the Trail

furthest area of the Daisho-in Temple

I didn't know it at the time, but it turns out that my gazebo is in front of the hall at right in the photo above.
Descending back down to where the stairs to the hall starts...

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Prayer Wheels (摩尼車)

steps leading to Daishoin Temple's Maniden Hall (大聖院の摩尼殿)

The idea is that you spin them as you go by, as the person in the photo
above is doing. According to the note written down the first support for
the wheels, it's believed that spinning a wheel once around provides the
same benefits as reading one scroll of sutras. Whatever that means.

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At the top of the stairs is Maniden Hall, fronted by a gazebo with the rope and bells...

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Revisiting After 25 Years








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I Remember This Scene

I seem to remember more distance between the gazebo and the building proper, but it was immediately clear that this
is the place I remembered. I was happy to have found it.

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Looking Back








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Detailed Carvings

I don't recall the Hall itself on that trip 25 years ago. It was probably shuttered up for the storm. Peeking inside this time...

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Ready for a Crowd

Following the veranda down the side and to the back, you come to a red-velvet steep stairway...

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Steep Stairway








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Twisty

It leads to the upper level of the two-story pagoda, which was mostly empty...

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Table for Two

The ceiling was pretty, though less symmetrical than I would have imagined...

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Remarkably Unsymmetrical









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Nice View

You can see the five-story pagoda in the distance.

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Side Veranda

back on the first floor








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One More Look Inside

the first floor









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Spinning

they're heading up as I'm heading down

Colorful Precipitation Radar Five Hours Before the Typhoon

Typhoon Approaching

4:05 PM — T minus-5 hours

I've never seen the precipitation radar look quite this colorful. This is from a few minutes ago. I live at the black dot to the lower-right of center. Typhoon #19 (“Vongfong”, though these kind of names are never used in Japan) is forecast to pass through Kyoto
in five or six hours. A bit exciting.

Update: 70 minutes later, it's all the more impressive:

5:15 PM

Now at 7:25 it's a field of red, and it's raining here, but it really doesn't seem that bad.
Also, the wind, which was quite strong a few hours ago, seems to have died down considerably.

7:25 PM

Update the next morning: it turned out to be not such a big deal here
in Kyoto... it rained but not even close to the torrential rains we get in
the summer. The Kamo river, for example, didn't even come close to flooding
(as it sometimes
does).

Bland Pre-Typhoon Views of the Sky from Kyoto to Hiroshima, at 300kph

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Pulling Out From Kyoto Station

view from a south-bound bullet train — 71 kph

As I mentioned
yesterday, with a typhoon expected to reach the main island of Japan on
Monday, we make a quick Saturday/Sunday trip south to Hiroshima and
Miyajima. The approaching typhoon made for an interesting sky, with a very
high cloud ceiling, in different patterns.

Photos of the sky from the train window are pretty bland, but perhaps of interest to someone who has never been to Japan.

この間の土曜日、京都から宮島までの空景色。写真はつまらないですが、日本に来られてない方には面白いかも。

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Rice and River

an extremely typical view — Akashi City — 273 kph (170 mph)








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Clouds in Himeji

295 kph (183 mph)








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Cruising Speed

300 kph (186 mph)








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Wrong

300kph, not 312 kph

In the split second after we came out of a tunnel, the GPS unit was confused about the speed. It quickly returned to 300kph.

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Rural Kurashiki, Okayama








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Pulling Into Fukuyama Station

269 kph

when I see a super-high cloud ceiling like this, I get excited for the sunset possabilities








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Pulling Into Hiroshima Station

yes, that's a Costco next to the baseball stadium — 103 kph








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Outside Hiroshima Station

weird art thing shows the spotty clouds — 0 kph

After a lunch (that will eventually be its own blog post), we took a streetcar for 15 minutes...

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Former Downtown Hiroshima

now a park

Then a taxi ride another 20 minutes south, and then...

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View from the Ferry

on the 10-minute ride between the mainland and Miyajima

a less-dramatic view than I posted seven years ago








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View from Our Hotel

Kinsuikan Hotel in Miyajima (宮島の錦水館)








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Kids Playing at Low Tide

in a few hours, the water will be four times their height








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Walkable (Sort Of)

Itsukushima Shrine (厳島神社)

One's got to be careful where one walks, because if there's vegetation, you can't tell at a glance whether it's
just over hard-packed dirt, or over a mushy layer of water. In this case, a kid answered the question for me:

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A few minutes before sunset, color started appearing to the west..

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First Colors

As I posted yesterday, it eventually got pretty nice.

Two days later, the typhoon is almost here.

Pre-Typhoon Low-Tide View of the Itsukushima Shrine Gate at Sunset

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Shrine Gate at Low Tide

Itsukushima Shrine (厳島神社)
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We popped down to Hiroshima this weekend, and spent the night in
Miyajima, near the Itsukushima Shrine. A typhoon is coming, so last
night's sunset was not too shabby.

厳島神社の鳥居、昨日の夕方。台風19号の影響で奇麗な夕焼けでした。今日、雨が始まる前に京都に戻りました。

The shrine is notable for being in a tidal
plane with a huge difference between high and low
tides (the difference yesterday morning was 3.41m — more than 11
feet), so the look and feel of the area changes dramatically throughout the
day. It's prettier when the water is up, but it's
more interesting when the tide is out because you can walk around out past
the gate.

Posts from earlier years from the same area include one about low tide (twice), one about the area at dusk, the gate at night, among
others.

On the way home this afternoon, the first drops of Typhoon #19 (“Vongfong”) started
hitting as we pulled into Hiroshima Station to switch to a bullet train. The typhoon will hit there in earnest
tomorrow, with it forecast to reach Kyoto by the evening.

It's the middle of a
three-day weekend, so I thought travel
would be relatively calm and uncrowded, but normal reserved seats on every
bullet train for hours were sold out. The thought
of having to stand for the two-hour trip to Kyoto was unappealing, so we
opted for “Green Car” seats, where we could indeed get a reservation to Kyoto. “Green Car” seats are
four to a row, instead of six, so it was nicer.
It was also much more expensive, of course,
but we were lucky to get them; by the time we got
to Osaka, the entire train was sold out, and the moment we arrived in Kyoto, a
conductor arrived to make sure our seats were empty, presumably for the few lucky folks with confirmed reservations from Kyoto.

To be continued...

A Black-on-Black “What am I?” Quiz

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 135mm — 1/320 sec, f/10, ISO 3600 —
map & image data — nearby photos

What am I?

besides, of course, very black

クイズ：何でしょうこれ
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It never ceases to amaze what one can find while putzing around the
mountain fringes of Kyoto. I came across this
today, and thought it might have potential as one of my “What am I?”
quizzes. What is it?

This one is probably pretty easy, especially if you look at the image metadata.

It brings to mind this quiz from a couple of years ago. I still use this related photo from that quiz's answer post
as the login-screen background for my Synology DS1511+ NAS unit;
the ultra-industrial feel seems to work nicely as a login screen.

As always, I'll keep comments hidden until I post the answer in a day or three.

Populating The Drive Bays of a Synology NAS Unit: Lessons Learned

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 140 —
map & image data — nearby photos

As Peaceful As...

... backup storage that doesn't crash
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(Recent posts have been filled with fall colors, so for some balance, I'm dipping into my cherry-blossom archives)

For the last few years I've had a Synology DS1511+ NAS unit... an always-on
“network drive” that sits in a closet at home that I can access on my home
network from all my computers at home. I use it for local Time Machine backup,
as well as a local CrashPlan repository for various
backups. (I also use CrashPlan to keep backups offsite.)

The Synology unit has five drive bays, which I initially populated with
3TB Seagate Barracuda drives.

That was a mistake.

Five drives at 3TB each ostensibly adds up to 15TB of storage, but I set
it up in a fail-fail-safe RAID configuration, meaning
that even if two drives crash at the same time, the data remains
available. That left me with 9TB of usable, relatively safe local storage.

That was a good idea.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 100 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Toji Temple (東寺)

Kyoto, Japan

With disk drives, it's never “if” it will crash, but “when”. When the
first drive crashed after about a year, I yanked it out of the drive bay
(while the Synology DS1511+ was still running... it allows for “hot swap”)
and put in a spare that I had ordered along with the initial five, for just
such an occasion. The Synology then used the new drive to rebuild the redundancy
in the background, and all was well.

The Seagate drive was under warranty, so I packed it up and shipped it
off to a Seagate processing facility near Tokyo, at my own expense. It was a hassle, but they sent me a new (refurbished) drive.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 @ 14mm — 1/500 sec, f/11, ISO 360 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Ryouanji Temple (龍安寺)

Kyoto, Japan
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Anyway, to cut to the chase, in the three years since I bought those 6 Seagate Barracuda drives, I've had 7
or 8 of them bad. They get replaced, and the replacement goes bad. The most recent, last week, was a
drive that had been replaced by Seagate just six weeks earlier.

One time, two drives crashed within hours of each other. I was very happy I'd opted for the fail-fail-safe
configuration. I replaced one of the failed
drives right away, but didn't have a second
spare, so I courted danger by running in just
fail-safe mode for a week or so until the
replacement came.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 100 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Looking

for a disk that doesn't crash

I think the problem is that these Seagate drives are “Desktop” drives, which means they're intended for a PC.... perhaps a PC that's
shut down every night? (I rarely shut down my computers, FWIW.)

Having gotten so sick of the hassle of sending these back to Seagate, I decided to buy some new drives. I went with Western Digital “Red”
4TB NAS drives.. They're specifically built for (or, at least, marketed for)
use in NAS units, so hopefully I'll have better luck going forward.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — 1/100 sec, f/11, ISO 720 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Rocks

as useful as dead disk drives
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