The reality is that most of them are made in China, so I absolutely recommend that customers take out a five-year warranty. That alone is the best possible measure.
December 27, 2023, 2:23:17 p.m.
As described in this chapter, I went to Yodobashi Camera Umeda, left the Siroca there for repair, and purchased a new T-fal.
Whenever it is time for a meal at Yodobashi Camera Umeda, I always stop by Capricciosa.
As I have written before, there was a mysterious connection between me and the founder of this restaurant—the late Japanese chef who served as a chef at the Italian Pavilion during the Osaka Expo.
What we eat there has become almost entirely fixed.
While waiting for the food to arrive, I was looking on my smartphone at goo’s real-time analytics and its top ten.
As I read the following chapter, which appeared among them, my heart grew warm.
true, I’m a brilliant shade of blue, it’s all because of you,
May 21, 2022
In May 2011, I suffered from a serious illness, and my attending physician told me that I had “a 25 percent chance of survival.”
I spent eight months in the hospital.
On December 16, 2011, I made a complete recovery and was discharged from the hospital.
Immediately after leaving the hospital, I headed to Kyoto to take photographs.
Some autumn leaves still remained at Shimogamo Shrine.
In 2012, I went to Kyoto Botanical Gardens on 300 of the year’s 365 days.
I continued photographing plants throughout the four seasons, as well as animals such as wild birds and butterflies.
Camellias, plum blossoms, cherry blossoms, tulips, roses, Japanese irises, hydrangeas, etc.
I was fascinated by kingfishers and photographed them almost every day.
There were also days when hardly anyone was there because of an approaching typhoon or other circumstances.
I even had the chance to photograph a kingfisher all by myself, though it was ordinarily surrounded by many photographers.
Around the time I felt that I had photographed kingfishers to my heart’s content, I began to be drawn to butterflies.
Among them, I was particularly fascinated by black swallowtails.
The moment I entered the path that we had named the black swallowtails’ passageway, I raised my voice thunderously.
“O Queen of the Forest, Nobunaga has arrived—now, reveal yourself…”
My companion would cry out:
“Your Majesty, Queen of the Forest…”
Then a magnificent giant dragonfly would appear, flying low.
He was the advance guard of the Queen of the Forest.
Before long, the Queen of the Forest would appear.
But she would hardly ever remain still.
Only once, while walking along the narrow path that turned right from the aforementioned path, he—the one we had named the Queen of the Forest, although he was actually male—appeared on a bellflower blooming as it projected directly in front of me and stopped there, right before my eyes.
It was a miraculous instant.
The following year, or perhaps several years later, there was a place where, during the breeding season, they repeatedly ascended vertically in order to display their flying ability to the females.
It was in one corner where there was a small pond resembling a puddle.
While pursuing them and crossing the little bridge over that pond, he began mating behind a branch of a plant immediately before my eyes on the left.
Those who have seen black swallowtails mating will know that it is a truly fantastical sight.
Once before, I had photographed a fleeting moment in which they were mating in the shade of hydrangea leaves beside the lotus pond.
It was a truly fantastical sight.
But this time was different.
As though he were saying to me, after I had continued pursuing him for several years, “You wanted to photograph me, didn’t you… I will let you photograph me to your heart’s content…,” he looked at me and continued mating endlessly, endlessly.
Three generations—a grandmother, a mother, and a daughter—happened to pass by.
Seeing me photographing as though possessed, they too noticed the butterflies.
“Oh, how rare… How beautiful…”
They were a truly pleasant grandmother, mother, and daughter of marriageable age.
A lively exchange of quick-witted remarks arose between me and the three generations of women.
“If you would give me your daughter as my wife, I would be content to die.”
Roars of laughter.
Even after they had left, I continued photographing.
Their mating seemed as though it would continue forever.
It was then.
I experienced the sensation that something possessing me had fallen away.
Perhaps it could be described as, “Reproduction is everything in this world”; such a feeling came over me.
From that day onward, my visits to Kyoto Botanical Gardens ceased.
To be continued.
Several years later, during the cherry blossom season, when I felt that I still had not taken enough photographs, I remembered the botanical garden’s magnificent cherry blossoms.
Since then, although the difference compared with before has been enormous, I have begun visiting again as the flowers come into bloom.
My principal destination was the rose garden.
This year, I began photographing earlier than ever before.
I thought I had already photographed everything there was to photograph.
Yesterday, intending to go and savor the fragrance of the roses, I finished my work on this column, immediately invited my closest friend, and headed for Kyoto.
To save time, we bought rice balls and other things at 7-Eleven and ate them on the train as we traveled there.
We began viewing the garden from a place that we had previously overlooked.
I was astonished by its magnificence and beauty.
Although I had supposedly gone there to immerse myself in the fragrance of the roses, I found myself taking photograph after photograph.
Astonishingly, I took more than 400 photographs.
It would not be an exaggeration to call them miraculous photographs, as though the spirits of the roses themselves dwelled within them.
On our way back through the rose garden, the strange and ferocious cries of a crow—the likes of which I had never heard before—continued to resound.
Thinking, “This is no ordinary matter,” I headed toward the place from which the cries were coming.
A lady who appeared to enjoy observing and photographing wild birds, accompanied by her husband, was pointing her camera at the crow that continued emitting those strange cries.
Before long, the lady said, “Ah, I see. It was because its child was here,” and discovered a young crow inside a small shrub beside her.
At the same time, another crow was feeding its young on a branch opposite us.
“It kept threatening me with that terrible voice in order to protect its child from me. It shook branches, bit them off, and threw them at me—it was incredible…”
We proceeded along our usual route home, the passageway of the Queen of the Forest.
There were two of them.
They would not stop at all.
Just as I was about to give up, one appeared directly before me.
It was a child.
For black swallowtails, too, it was the season for raising their young.
We continued on our way home.
We approached the place where, on the first day I visited the rose garden, a magnificent blue-black swallowtail had suddenly appeared before me.
He had appeared entirely unexpectedly.
It lasted only an instant, but miraculously, I was able to photograph him.
I wanted to send this photograph out into the world, accompanied by Reina del Cid’s ♪Candy Apple Red♪.