Live from Japan!

While visiting Kyoto with Rachel we spent a good amount of time just wandering. We wandered through city streets, we wandered through temple grounds and gardens. We just took it all in without too many plans or ambitions and, I must say, it was really good.

One of my favorite things that we found during all of our wandering, was these really strange trees.

They were all perfectly manicured in the same, bizarre way. Each had a single branch that was allowed to grow upwards to the sky. That branch had a single tuft of greenery right at the very top, and that greenery was responsible for collecting all the sunlight and energy to support the very strange tree. I have never seen anything quite like it.

We were all stunned, awed. It was remarkable. We stopped, we gawked, we admired the pruning jobs, and we took photos. Lots and lots of photos.

And that’s me, posing with the trees. That picture is one of the first that really makes me feel a little stunned, after all, that is getting to be a big ole belly! I guess that is bound to happen, we are a bit over 4 months pregnant and things are still growing and progressing!