Stalactites & Stalagmites

Recently, we went to a local tourist spot that we had yet to visit called Ryugashido. It's a cavern that takes about an hour to walk through. Here's a photo of me outside of the entrance with a scary looking dragon behind me:
They had a good path with many explanations along the way and lots of interesting formations to look at:

I liked some of the mini-lakes that formed underground:
It was interesting to see some small plants growing down there:
Afterwards, we enjoyed some delicious gelato in the souvenir area:

Birds with their prey

I've been lucky living in our house by the lake since I can sometimes get some good photos of the birds that live in this area. I was surprised when I looked through my blog that there weren't any of these photos, so I'll start putting some up.

The first set is of birds catching fish. Last week I got a couple of good shots of a Black Kite, which is a common bird of prey in this area:

About one month ago, I got this shot of a Cormorant trying to eat a whole eel. It took a number of attempts.
My favourite set of shots is of this Grey Heron eating a fish whole:

Snowy day

Well, I guess we did get another day of snow this winter. On Sunday, it snowing on and off during the day. Since it was cloudy all day, some of the snow even stayed on the ground:
And when we woke up on Monday morning, there was quite a bit of snow (for Hamamatsu) on the ground:
On Sunday night, Ayako made a yuki daruma (Japanese snowman - made with 2 spheres):
By the morning, he had lost his eyes, but had gained some snow at the base:
Ayako and I enjoyed going for a morning walk in the snow. It felt like a Canadian snowy day in December.

Here are some more pics from the house:

Happy Birthday to me

I was lucky that some friends still on their new year's holidays, so they could come visit out house and help celebrate my birthday:
Ayako made some delicious dishes and our friends from Toyohashi and Iwata had fun getting to know each other:

Of course, there was also a delicious cake that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was called ultimate lemon cake and it definitely had a super lemon taste:
Here we all are (minus Eiki taking the photo) before the Toyohashi crew had to head home:
It was a fabulous birthday indeed.

First (& last?) snow of the winter

It was snowing here for about an hour today:
The snow was trying to stay on the ground, but couldn't. It could stay on my coat though:
It's only the 4th time I've seen snow in Hamamatsu, so it might also be the last time we see snow this winter.

p.s. Happy New Year!

Tearing down a house

One of our neighbours is tearing down their house to put up a new one. We could hear the workers tearing down the house, so Ayako and I went out to take some pictures of the action:

We even got a video of the roof from one part of the house coming down:

I'll be watching the progress and will hopefully remember to show you what the new house looks like once it is built.

Thanksgiving dinner

While Japan is celebrating Sports and Health Day on Monday, Canada was celebrating Thanksgiving, so Ayako and I invited another Canadian, Johnny, and his wife, Yoko, over for a Thanksgiving dinner:
Here we are before tucking in:
And here was this year's spread...yum yum:

Co-workers get-together

AS we did last year, we had some of my co-workers from the university over for lunch this past Sunday. Unfortunately, a few couldn't come, but luckily some new faces were there. Angus and Jon made a grand entrance in Jon's Honda S2000 sports car:
We enjoyed lots of delicious food that Ayako prepared. Angus enjoyed some bird watching:
We were lucky that it didn't rain and could enjoy a walk in the afternoon:

Third-year Anniversary

Ayako and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary on Tuesday, but actually went out to celebrate it on Thursday. We went to the Kanzanji area near our house, which is where we celebrated our first anniversary. This time though, we ate lunch and enjoyed an onsen (hot spring bath) at the priciest hotel in the area, Kokonoe Hotel.
We had lunch first which included tempura and sashimi:

The lunch was very delicious and we had a lovely view of Hamanako lake:After lunch, we had our photo taken outside the restaurant:
Since we were so full, we decided to go for a walk outside before going to the onsens. We found a long deck leading out into the lake and we took a photo together there. Here was our first attempt when the self-timer went off sooner than expected:
The second one was the shot that we were aiming for (although I'm not sure which I like better):
Afterwards, we went to the separate male/female onsens. Mine was wonderful with 9 types of baths and a sauna. Since it was early afternoon on a Thursday, I had the whole place to myself for two hours. Definitely one of my best onsen experiences.

Visiting a service station

Ayako and I went for a short drive today around the coast of the lake. There is an old hotel that we can see when we go for walks and we wanted to check it out. We found that it is now closed but will become a part of a local school.

We continued driving and found a back entrance to a highway service station. We decided to check out this local service station since I know we will never actually use it when on the highway. Here is Ayako walking towards it:
I found that it is one of the best service stations I've seen in Japan with a large park for relaxing from driving and a beautiful view of the lake:
Here's another shot looking in another direction. Kanzanji area is behind Ayako and our house is to the left of this photo:
We decided to get some snacks while we were there. Here I am waiting for a banana-custard crepe:
It hit the spot:
We continued our nice drive through the forest on the way back home with stop-offs at the library and the supermarket (where everything was 20% off - Woohoo!).