The rest of June.

My camera finally broke. It did well for four and a half years. I went to the used junk store and bought another one. My brother visited for a weekend.

Me, slapping my broken camera.

We went to the holy mountain
nearby and saw this stone with religious
teachings carved into it. It's old.

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I watched a lot of high school baseball this June.

I went to a children's music festival.

I took a hike from home to school on my day off. I brought my lunch, my new camera, and sunscreen. I walked the same road that I drive everyday.

A persimmon tree orchard.

A dragon statue at a temple in a grove near
the road. Think "Mulan."

A traffic sign.

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My birthday dinner. Baked salmon,
fried whiting, boiled crab, raw shrimp,
Chirashizushi, beer.

Sapporo

White Birch trees.

Dancing Dolls.

Boat deck.

I went to Sapporo a week ago. We drove 5 hours by bus to the ferry terminal, then slept on the ferry for the 8-hour ride to Hokkaido. It was the first time I have seen the Pacific in awhile and I imagined the boy on the other side. The air and the trees are different up on Hokkaido. More like home except there were no evergreens. There were even poplar seeds floating around. Where I live, it is much more humid. We ate crab one night and the table in the lobby was decorated with a festival scene and all of these hand-high dolls. The ferry ride on the way home was from midnight to 9 am, but I didn't get to see any ocean expanse. It was all fog, all night and in the morning.