Category: Traveling

Cooler Weather

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"State Stickers" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO2000
 “State Stickers” Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！How’s it going?

We made it to the weekend! Yay! The weather was so nice today… sunny with wispy clouds and cool enough that I could drive with the windows rolled down and hang my arm out the window in super-relax mode. It was great. 🌤

I was chatting with my friend about motorcycles 🏍 a bit and I started cleaning up my bike, making a mental list of things I need to do, such as replace some dash bulbs, re-check my maintenance supplies, and bleed the brakes among other things. It’s fun to work on the bike and I can save a bit of money too. 😀

Today’s photo is of the stickers on my bike, which are of the states I have ridden to. We live in the middle of Texas, which is a huge state, so to get to the border it takes something like 4 hours. And if you travel west to New Mexico, it will take about 8 hours. Isn’t that crazy?! 😖

But I’ve done it a couple of times and it was a lot of fun. I once rode east to Louisiana, then up to Arkansas and spent the night there, then rode the entire next day to Oklahoma and then back home to Austin. It was fun, but tiring as you can imagine. And my motorcycle isn’t the most comfortable for long-distance touring because it lacks wind protection and had a pretty strong vibration (because of its single-cylinder engine design). However, I have pretty good endurance for riding (and driving) so I don’t have a problem with it. I kind of get into the groove and can just keep going and going!

BTW, if you are interested at all in motorcycles, I have another blog where I post about rides, link to motorcycle videos, etc… it’s at motofuji.net.

I’m kind of getting excited about going for another long-distance ride, but now with two cats and a dog it will be a bit more difficult to do an overnighter. Oh well, day trips are fun too!

I hope you had a nice Friday!

おやすみなさい！

– B Barron Fujimoto

Travel Books

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"Browsing" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/8, 1/55 sec, ISO6400
 “Browsing” Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！How’s it going?

This evening after dinner I took my two sons to the library to get some books. 📚 Koa borrowed a couple volumes of his favorite manga, “One Piece”, while Bay picked up several travel books. Next summer we are planning on taking a trip ✈ 🚄 to Morocco, Spain, France, and England so we’re doing research on things to see and places to stay. The planning stages are getting exciting!

The most up-to-date information is online, but it’s fun to borrow the travel books to look at maps and get ideas from more reputable sources, like good old Frommer’s and Lonely Planet. It’s also nice to curl up in bed and leaf through a paper book, especially a travel guide, where you can let your wanderlust take hold. 🗺

"On the Way Out" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/8, 1/30 sec, ISO6400
 “On the Way Out” Cedar Park, 2016

When we left the library, nature surprised us with a lovely magenta sunset. 🌇 Love it!

"Sunset" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/8, 1/75 sec, ISO3200
 “Sunset” Cedar Park, 2016

I hope you had a nice Tuesday!

おやすみなさい！

– B Barron Fujimoto

Is Jet-lag Contagious?

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"Tired Son" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO2000
 “Tired Son” Cedar Park, 2016

Hello, how’s it going?

Today the kids and my wife have been struggling with jet-lag. For the past month or so they have been in Japan, which is 14-hours ahead of Texas so it’s quite a severe time-difference! My youngest son didn’t sleep a wink last night, but took a long nap this afternoon, and in the photo above you can see my oldest son sleeping at around 5pm. We had to wake him for dinner. 😴

But my sleep schedule was affected immediately by them being home, and I stayed up til 1 AM the night they arrived, and then tonight I am up way past my usual bedtime again… which leads me to believe that jet-lag is highly contagious! 😝

おやすみなさい！

– B Barron Fujimoto

Travel Day

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"Distant Storm" Charlotte, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.5, 1/13 sec, ISO12800
 “Distant Storm” Charlotte, 2016

All good things must come to an end, and so it was with the 2016 Leesang Family Reunion… our group all left Miami today and flew back home. Some flew to Los Angeles, some to Honolulu, and I returned to Austin.

I think all of our flights got delayed and mine was about 40 minutes late into Charlotte, where I exited the plane and literally walked right onto my flight to Austin. That was cutting it close!

I arrived back at home at about 1 AM, tired but with a smile on my face. Looking forward to the next reunion, especially because I will be joined by my wife and kids for sure!

Note: This post was written on 8/6/2016

Farewell Party

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"Fun Family" Miami, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/120 sec, ISO6400
 “My Crazy Family” Miami, 2016

The final day of our visit to Miami was wonderful. It started out with a leisurely morning with our cousins playing games and then half of us split off to do some sightseeing at Coconut Grove, and the rest stayed at home. I opted to stay home, and helped get ready for the evening party. I went with my mom and cousin to deliver food, extra chairs, and set up tables at the nearby church’s dining hall which we rented out for the party and because I got a preview of the party-to-come, I was pretty excited!

"Farewell Party" Miami, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.2, 1/60 sec, ISO6400
 “Farewell Party” Miami, 2016

As is typical with our family, the party involved dancing, drinking, and lots of yummy food. There were patties, curry, stew peas, rice and peas, oxtail, jerk, etc… And of course we had to spice it up with fresh Scotch Bonnets! 🔥 Plenty of Red Stripe was also consumed. 🍻

"Such Good Food" Miami, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/125 sec, ISO2500
 “Such Good Food” Miami, 2016

I mentioned before that the Leesang family likes to dance and tonight we had an instructor teach how to do a couple different dances at the beginning of the party. Check it out below!

Our family is also pretty into the Pokémon GO! craze too, and there was a gym at the church so several people had fun outside battling to take over the gym. Another fun family activity, actually!

It was a lot of fun hanging out with the extended family and taking lots of photos (I shared them in our private Facebook page) and I have to say the X100T was perfect. I got a lot of people asking me about the camera too… many people thought it was a classic film camera. 😄 What I love about the camera is that it is so fast and discreet. I had people smile, took their photo, and it was over in a split second and we were back to partying. That was such a great feeling… to not have the camera be such a big deal. The “snapshot life” is a great place to be.

Anyways, the party was a blast! We ended up leaving at around midnight and then the party continued back at the house, with the younger generation playing boardgames til the wee hours of the morning, while a few of us opted to go hang out in the pool.

I finally hit the bed at around 2:30 AM… it was a great day!

Note: This post was written on 8/7/2016