Seattle's rainy season begins in October and runs through April, and with an average of about 150 days of rain a year, that must be three times as many as Tokyo. The rain falls fine and thin, though, [...] Read more

Now, with these sunlit days, the season's gifts of vivid blue and green are all around us. Although it is summer, there are still hardly any days when the temperature reaches 25°C, but the sunlight [...] Read more

Downtown is divided by concrete and brick buildings, while the midday sun casts straight-edged, geometric shadows and lends the scene a vaguely inorganic air. Through the intricate passages between [...] Read more

From downtown Seattle to the Pacific coast is about 150 kilometers due west. With a tent in the car, I drove leisurely along the coastline toward the Oregon border, planning to stay perhaps two [...] Read more

In photography, a “snapshot” means capturing a subject such as a person in a natural state, in an instant. It is usually contrasted with a “portrait,” for which the subject is told beforehand [...] Read more

Seattle is known as the home of companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Costco, Starbucks, and Tully's, but few people know that Washington leads the United States in the production of many agricultural [...] Read more

The world's population is about to reach seven billion, and this country has already surpassed 300 million. As industry flourishes, people gather and cities must continue to grow. These days it [...] Read more

Nature's radiance in each of the four seasons has its own character and beauty. Autumn in Seattle marks the beginning of the rainy season, so clear, dry days are few. Perhaps a passing shower settles [...] Read more

Looking again at this photograph taken in Tokyo about two months ago, I was reminded how wonderful a smile truly is. Then a line from the French philosopher Alain's writings on happiness came to [...] Read more

On January 1, I reached my seventieth birthday, the traditional age known as koki. Ordinarily it is apparently reckoned by the old East Asian method, so I had already reached it last year. By my own [...] Read more