How we roll, Part 2

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Farewell to Blogger but not to Blogs

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After 14 years, 600+ posts, thousands of photographs and stories that spanned 3 continents, it's time for me to part ways with Blogger. It all came down to formatting and style and the fact that I simply do not want to devote my time to learning more HTML coding than what I know today. The format of this blog was a challenge for me - sizing, colors, layout - all required me to go far outside my comfort zone but large extent I got what I wanted from it. But these last few trips I've just been unhappy with the results (in particular the ability to size and place photographs in a manner pleasing to my eye.) And the truth of it is, Blogger has stayed static while other platforms have automated the process to the point where its fairly easy to get what you want with canned tools versus writing code. To that end, we're off to WordPress. I've bought the domain, I've locked in a premium account and from this day forward that's where you'll find me. So th...
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Rain, then no rain, then sun, then rain, then no rain.

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We woke up to another rainy day this morning, so after breakfast rather than spend outside getting wet, we went to the Musée de la Civilisation de Québec, conveniently located directly across the street from our hotel. It’s housed in a modern stone and glass building, cleverly built to mimic the old Normandy-style buildings that surround it. Devoted to history of the province, there were two special exhibitions that made the visit quite worthwhile. We started with the Age of Discovery exhibit, jointly produced with the British Royal Museum of Natural History. Tons of examples of flora and fauna collected during the 18 th , 19 th and early 20 th century by European natural history scientists. Included was a 1 st edition copy of Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” and one of his original logbooks. Among the butterflies, fossils, skeletons and pressed botanicals were a Moa skeleton, a saber-toothed cat skeleton and an original Audubon plate. My favorite display was a stuffed Dodo,...
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Jingu

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We had a couple of hours to kill this afternoon so we decided to visit the famous Ise temple complex, the most famous in all of Japan and the spiritual home for those Japanese who follow the way of Shinto. The native and most ancient religion of Japan, Shinto is a polytheistic practice that believes in spirits residing in the natural world. Because of this basic tenet, the Shinto shrines are very, very beautiful in their construction and landscaping. Entering the grounds immediately imparts a sense of inner peace, which is the intention of the creators of the sites. Kami , the powerful spirits, are enshrined all across the island in consecrated rocks and evergreens, and in sanctuaries called jinja . The word Shinto literally translates as “the way of the kami.” There are more than 100,000 sanctuaries across Japan and Jingu is the most sacred of all. Like Mecca for those who follow Islam, all Shinto are expected to make a pilgrimage to Jingu and to that end it hosts almost a million vis...
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