Dec 13 marks the formal start in Japan of 正月事始め（shougatsu-goto-hajime） when the Big Tidy activities start and it’s off to the mountains to get 門松 (kadomatsu) materials. 🎍🇯🇵

Kadomatsu - Wikipedia

Bean bun boogie, Shinbashi Tokyo. 📷🧆

Alien traffic safety mascot approaches. 📷👽

Dec 11 is International Mountain Day, a day to think on our impact on vital mountain ecosystems. I wish I was hiking today! 🏔️📷 https://www.un.org/en/observances/mountain-day

Scaffolding went up before the old “jikka“ ancestral home was torn down. Four years ago already! 📷🏡

Yesterday our 大掃除 “ohsouji” or “Big Tidy” task was replacing the ugly brown mats we’d laid downstairs with nice wood-like flooring. Took all day & was really hard, but looks good & we can use the heated floor. 💦

This weekend is 大掃除 “ohsouji” or the “Big Tidy” as I like to call it, where the nooks and crannies get so clean even Marie Kondo blushes. If you’re not in Japan, do you do this? 📷🇯🇵🧽🧹

8000 US $ per hour?! Wow.

Udagawa Yu-sui-chi is a little nature conservation area near a park we take Maru the Shiba to almost daily. You can’t go down into it but you can peer at it to see birds. 📷🦆

Snaps of a Hillman in Higashi Azabu, 2016.