Viewing the leaves in Shirakurakyo

On Sunday, our friends Eric and Tomoe came over for a visit. Actually, Eric and I will be taking the same level test in Japanese in two weeks, so we had a study session before lunch. Hopefully we'll be okay for the test. After lunch, we went for a drive up north to see if we could see any of leaves changing colour yet. Ayako and I visited the area two years ago, and it wasn't very busy at that time. This year though, the narrow road leading to the area was quite busy:
Anyways, we could see some trees changing colour:
There were also nice walkways to get to some nice streams and waterfalls as well:
Here's a picture of me trying to set-up the timer and having trouble:
And here's a shot once I had figured it out:
On the way back home, we decided to try and avoid the crowded road, and so we found a long winding road through the forest going back. Still though, there was some nice lookouts along the road:

Looking for red leaves

On Sunday, Ayako and I met up with our friends, Eiki and Ryoko, and went up to Mori-machi to visit Okuni shrine:
I went up there the past two years as well since it's a good place to see red leaves in fall, although unfortunately, this year the leaves are a bit late and so there weren't as many red leaves as we had hoped.
We did get to see some of the kids dressed up for shichi-go-san, which is a traditional rite of passage in Japan for three and seven year-old girls and three and five year-old boys:
We could also see brand new cars being blessed by Shinto priests:
I have often played just a bit with my camera for trying new shots, but on this day, I tried to using the manual setting and was able to get some good shots. Here are some of the photos I took:

Oguni shrine 2006

On Sunday, Ayako and I joined some friends and took an hour drive to the town of Mori which has a famous shrine, which is especially popular at this time of year since the have some beautiful Japanese maple trees along a river that look lovely at this time of year. If you actually look back to December 2005, you'll see when I went there last year. It was the peak weekend to see the leaves changing colour, so there was a huge line of traffic when we got close to the shrine. We decided to park at a nearby tea house and walk the rest of the way. But first, we got some good pictures of the giant tea pot pouring water:
I think the shrine is very scenic and peaceful and quiet usually, although it was definitely busy when we were there. Still, I tried to get some good peaceful pictures when I was there:
While we were at the shrine:we saw a numer of children who were dressed up to celebrate a special Shinto holiday, shichi-go-san. When a boy turns 3 & 5 and when a girl turns 3 & 7, they visit the shrine for a special ceremony to wish them a long life:We then had fun walking along the river with beautiful trees: and took a nice group hot together:

Looking for red leaves

On Saturday, Ayako and I went with our friends Eiki and Ryoko about an hour and a half north of Hamamatsu to an area called Shirakura valley. We were hoping to find some fall leaves changing colour even though we knew this year was a bit later than usual. Here's us walking down to the valley: It was a nice wooded area and river we walked along in the valley. There were some nice bridges and waterfalls as well: Finally, we were able to find some red leaves:

And Ayako found a nice house she wants to live in:
On the way back home, we stopped at a campground that made fresh buckwheat noodles (soba) in a little restaurant. We got to watch the process and then get to eat some:
Outside the restaurant, we met a friendly cat who loved being pet (and also drinking from the river):

Ogunijinja (a shrine)

On Sunday, I went with my girlfriend, Ayako, to a shrine about an hour north-east of my city. There were still some red leaves on the trees and so a fair number of people were there to view the trees as well as a few women dressed in kimonos to have their photos taken in the scenic setting.
There were also people who drove their new cars there to have them blessed by a Shinto priest. Actually, there were a lot of people bringing their cars. It was like an assembly line for the priest.