It's beginning to look a lot like winter

Winter is here and with no better way to announce its arrival it dumped a whole bunch of snow on us. Just enough to be inconvenient but not enough to get us a day off school. 

So with snow on the ground it was time to start thinking about Christmas. In the spirit of Christmas Sheena and I took another Friday night to go look at some illuminations over in Sagamiko—another thing that has become a yearly tradition. It was really nice but still not comparable to the amazing first year when I went with Rhee and we stayed in the music box all evening watching the light show in time to the most beautiful music I could ever imagine pairing with the sights of the light cathedral. After, in favour of another tradition, we went to the Gusto on the lake and warmed ourselves up with cocoa and dinner.

 

For my Christmas lesson this year I decided to make cards with Asumi but utilize my very awesome English room for Yoshidanishi. I put up three large paper Christmas trees in the back of the room and while listening to Christmas music I had my kids decorate them with crafts. It was a lot of fun and a lot of really creative (and sometimes creepy) things came from it. My favourite was when a kid somehow coloured Santa upside down so he came out looking like a ghost. He was all embarrassed but I assured him it was adorable and hung it front and centre on the tree. Now I never want to take it down…

Then the year came to a close. My last day of school was Christmas Eve which is also Kevin’s birthday. On the Sunday before we’d had his party (I totally managed to surprise him with awesome party poppers~) so for his actual birthday we combined his birthday dinner with the Japanese tradition of eating fried chicken and cake and played video games!

 
On actually Christmas I was really happy that I didn’t have to work. It was a beautiful day. I woke up late. Put on Christmas movies. Made a big breakfast and unwrapped the little presents mom had wrapped and sent to me which were waiting under the Christmas tree. It was really peaceful and nice. I managed to keep the spirit of Christmas alive with ‘The Santa Clause’ and baileys in my coffee. In the afternoon I walked over to Sheena’s listening to music and enjoying the warm day and there we drank her fabulous homemade eggnog watched movies and ate more fried chicken and cake. It was a good Christmas but I do look forward to being back with my loved ones next year.

But I won’t be alone for the holidays for Nikki comes on Saturday! We’re going north to Sendai one trip and south to Sekigahara for another. Really excited!

Of rainbows, autumn and a bike ride

One morning I woke up and the day tasted of adventure. It was the first day of December but not too cold and the sky was blue just begging me to go outside and explore. With freedom that only comes with traveling on one’s own schedule I set out alone under the radar and went on a road trip. As mentioned before, the warmth in winter goes to Shizuoka so I followed it down around the mountain. I barely had to drive more than an hour before I came upon my first destination, Shiraito Falls. It’s this lovely little park, I went to once with Rhee in the dead of winter, with two waterfalls. Some of the red and gold leaves were still hanging on and despite not being able to go all the way down to the river due to renovations, I got some impressive shots. Best of all: there was a RAINBOW in one of the waterfalls. I really thought seeing one that vibrantly being reflected in water was a thing of fantasy and yet there it was gracing me with its spectacular colours.

Feeling nostalgic, I went to another place I went to with Rhee. The main Fuji shrine. It’s really beautiful and blended in with the foliage with its red paint. Also, November is a time where children 3, 5 and 7 years-old go to the shrine for special blessings and they were all out and about looking simply adorable in their little kimono. Not wanting to intrude on their ceremony I passed by the main shrine and spent most of my time making friends with the fish in this lovely little pond dappled by leaves. Finally I went to this other pond with a little shrine island that can be reached by two red bridges! It was pretty much picture perfect for me: red bridge, shrine, willow tree, pond, koi fish and Fuji in the background. 

With the sun still above me I thought I might try for a final stop. Lake Tanuki is Shizuoka’s version of our five lakes and is famous for reflecting Fuji’s image. I wanted to go for the reflection, to explore someplace new and because I heard you can rent a bike and circle the entire lake! So that’s what I did. It was super awesome fabulously terrific! It was super cheap to rent me a silly little bike, and after much fussing over how to release the beast from his chains, we were off at a brisk pace. Just me, my camera, some Canadian geese, the old bike, a blue sky, the wind in my hair and Fuji. The perfect way to end the day. 

Breathless and flushed, I returned the bike to his stable, snapped a few last shots and headed back to Fujiyoshida, making it home just in time for sunset. Pretty much what a perfect day in Japan looks like!

An assortment of autumn

A third autumn and I find Japan no less amazing but the urge to race about the country collecting every maple leaf possible has faded a little. This year I mostly stayed close to home. One warm Saturday morning I circled Kawaguchiko to get the momiji tunnel shots of Fuji. It was just as glorious as last year. I took my time watching the fish in the lake and battling brambles to get the perfect shot. (It was a draw as I got the shot but they ripped my tights.) Then was on my way.

Next I went all the way around the lake to a shrine I visited in late spring. I was there alone last time too. Maybe it was actually closer to early summer because I remember praying for my Grandma’s health only a short while before going home to Canada. She passed away anyways but I’d like to think my wish made it so I got home in time to say goodbye. Small blessings. The reason I returned this time was because I’d seen the most beautiful charm of Mt. Fuji and the cherry blossoms. It turns out the shrine is famous for them and with a little imagination I could see the way the now hibernating trees would line the path between shrine and the torii gate in pink. As I was leaving I saw a sign that said this shrine was one of the first in the Fujigoko area and had been a pilgrimage spot for the Takeda clan. It was destroyed in the big eruption many of hundreds of years ago but rebuilt to its original beauty later on.

After I went to write a few hours. It’s Nanowrimo time. And then headed to Otsuki for iaido because my black belt test was coming up. Spoiler: I passed. Confession: I’m writing this post two months later.

A couple of weeks later—after kicking my shodan test’s butt (half of it was written meaning I wrote it in Japanese!)—I went to Ibaraki with Sheena and Laura to see some leaves. It took many many hours to get there but once we did we were greeted by a pretty blue sky, a slight chill and the momiji temple. It was really pretty I just wish we’d had some better light.

 

 

 

 After we went to what I only found out later was one of the top three waterfalls in Japan. (Another one of those lists of three apparently. Another one is in Nikko, which I’ve seen, and the last is in Wakayama which I still really want to go to. Maybe spring break before going home.) Again it was pretty but as winter was approaching and we were in a mountainous area, the sun just didn’t quite peak over to the tops of the hills leaving us mostly in shade. It was also REALLY busy so we couldn’t ride the elevator to the slightly better vantage point up higher, nor was it possible to hike through solid rock. Instead we opted to head back to the car for some more adventuring before we lost all the light. The sun sets at around four in Japan in winter. Before reaching Kei (the car) we stopped on a bridge and there was this cool shot of the surrounding hills and the three of our shadows stretched out before us.

Okay so more adventuring would have been good in theory except for one little problem. The highway on google maps through the mountains was less a highway and more a narrow, very windy, road at best, trail by Canadian standards AND there was a giant tour bus on the other side trying to navigate against the flow of traffic. This resulted in me turning my car off twice to just sit there in the growing darkness tied up by the traffic and getting over the mountain only after we’d lost the light…

It was an okay day though because of good company but we were all feeling a bit disappointed UNTIL the beautiful pink Aeon sign guided us to the mall and we spent the rest of the evening chowing down on 1300 yen yakiniku tabehodai! Best part!

The following week it got even colder taking away the rest of the autumn leaves in Fujiyoshida. However, there is always one place we can count on to find hints of autumn when its winter everywhere else: Shizuoka! So on a Friday evening after school, Sheena and I headed down to balmy Izu (where the cherry blossoms bloom a full two months before ours) to capture some really cool night photography. It was a great opportunity for my still somewhat new camera because it had a beautiful ISO settings and HD quality so as long as I find a level place to sit my camera I can get some sharp shots. And so I did in this quaint little park that had a Japanese garden with lanterns and momiji on the shores of a pond.

We stayed out well over an hour until we got too cold and headed for dinner and then home. It was a good start to a weekend where I ended up celebrating Thanksgiving and going to iaido but it also felt like the cold was really beginning to set in.