Old Farmhouses in Shirakawago
Another Cool Video
After that cell division video yesterday, I went down a Jan van IJken (the creator) rabbit hole. I found this cool video called “The Art of Flying” that I share with you now! 🙂
I asked my friend Matt Ridley about this effect that is called a murmuration. He said it is usually affected by predators that are trying to attack just a single bird, but the entire flock reacts to protect itself.
Daily Photo – Old Farmhouses in Shirakawago
Here’s a rather embarrassing story.
So, a few of these old farmhouses in Shirakawago, Japan, have been converted to ryokans. A ryokan is an old-style “hotel” that was used by traveling samurais with the sliding rice-paper walls, you sleep on the floor on a futon, you have group dinners and breakfasts, etc. I stayed in one that quite bare-bones with tiny rooms. You could literally hear your neighbor turning over in their bed as the sheets rubbed across their body. I was trying so hard to be quiet.
Anyway, about 1 AM I felt a gurgle below my tummy. I tried to go back to sleep and deal with it in the morning, but that didn’t work out well. It was that feeling you just have to deal with now: explosive diarrhea. I don’t know what the heck I ate, but things were going crazy south of the border. So I had to get out of bed, which was noisy enough on its own, but nothing next to what came next to disrupt the silence.
The next morning at breakfast, the other four guests at the ryokan were glancing this way and that, trying to figure out who had the midnight issues… I think they knew it was me.
