"Hana no mai" sake festival

On Sunday, there was a free sake festival at a shrine near the largest sake brewery in Hamamatsu. When you arrive, they give you a nice sake glass and then you can fill it as often as you like:
We found a spot to sit and drink beside a friendly group of guys:
There was even some entertainment such as clown musicians, basket heads and taiko drummers:

Sushi party/Jenny's return

On Saturday night, I had a sushi party at my apartment which was also for welcoming Jenny back to Hamamatsu. Here are some pictures from the party and including the pumpkin Sarah and Daniela made:

Night kayaking

We returned this weekend to where we went kayaking last weekend. This time is was in the evening to go kayaking for 2 hours at night. By going close to the shore which was blocked from city lights, you could see plankton in the water that was phosphorescent and would glow a little. By moving your hand around in the water, it would 'activate' the plankton more and would light up even more. We could even 'light up' the plankton deep in the water by moving our paddles around deep in the water. It was a very cool experience that unfortunately was too dark to take photos of...sorry.

Kayaking

On Monday, there was a holiday in Japan, and so Ayako and I met up with a Canadian friend, Dave and his girlfriend Karen and went kayaking on Lake Hamana in my city. It was just for an hour but it was fun enough that we want to do it again next weekend. Here's some pictures:

Asagiri Jam music festival

On Saturday and Sunday, I went to a music festival at the base of Mt. Fuji with Ayako and our friends Keisuke and Rie. It was nice that our friends invited us to the festival since it is hard to get tickets as the festival sells out right away, even before they announce which bands will play that year. It was a huge area but lots of space to move around and watch the bands since they limit the number of tickets to 12,000. There were lots of people and tents there but it didn't feel too crowded:
There were 2 stages at the festival with about half of the bands being international and playing all types of music. I only knew 2 bands which were the Pogues and Ron Sexsmith from Canada who is pictured here (far away):
It was wonderful being able to sit on the grass and watch bands and also look around and see Mt. Fuji right behind us:
Here's an evening and night shot:

Day off in Toyokawa

I was lucky enough to have my 2 classes cancelled on Wednesday, so I decided to take a trip to a town called Toyokawa which is about an hour away. I took a nice train ride out there (which I enjoyed since I'm always driving around Japan). On the train ride, I finally got to take a picture of a radar air force plane I often see flying overhead in Hamamatsu:
The main thing to see in Toyokawa is a big shrine called Toyokawa Inari:
On the grounds, there was a huge Sweet Olive tree that was in bloom and gave a wonderful smell as soon as you got close to it:
There were some wonderful quiet areas there:
The shrine also has lots of statues of foxes and even has an area with lots of little statues of foxes as well:
On the way back to the train station through the town, I saw a display of handheld fireworks with I watched a performance of back in July:

addictive new commercial/song (Tarako)

There's a commercial for pasta sauce called Tarako that I've started singing along with. Tarako is a pasta sauce made from salted cod eggs, thus the little red babies you see. At first I thought it was just another strange Japanese commercial, but now I think there's some subliminal addictive quality to it similar to Teletubbies. Anyways, here's the commercial:

The little song has even become popular enough for a 4-minute video to be produced as well as having a CD with the song being sold now. Here's the video: