Family visit to Japan - Part 1

On Tuesday night (April 29) my parents (Doug & Margaret), my sister & brother-in-law (Barbara & Jason) and my aunt & uncle (Elizabeth & Carl) arrived in Hamamatsu for the first (as well as being the first time to Japan for some of them). There was a short time for chatting before bed. The next day we had a long drive out to Kawane area (Sumatakyo specifically). Everyone got to see the ripe-for-picking tea fields and Barbara even got a tea-picker to pose for a good shot:
We got into town about lunch time and so the first Japanese food everyone tried on this trip was soba and udon. Here's a shot of everyone minus mom (taking the shot):
After some souvenir shopping for tea products in town, we went for a walk to the dam nearby and it's teal-coloured lake. Here's a shot of us crossing the suspension bridge there:
Here's a shot of Barbara finishing the cross:
After the long day (with a short line up for gas) we rested at home and looked at our plan for the next day:
On Thursday, Elizabeth and Carl went to a nearby city called Okazaki, where Aunt Elizabeth did a home stay. The rest of us went to the air self-defence force in Hamamatsu. We had a good guided tour there. Here we are with our tour guides:
A shot of Barbara and Ayako in a Kawasaki T-4:
And me figuring out the many controls:
Here's Barbara with some more guides who showed us the air-rescue planes:
And here's Ayako with mom:
Barbara looking out of the bubble window of a rescue helicopter:
And me in the pilot's seat of the helicopter:
Here's a shot of us in the tour van:
Our Japanese food that day for lunch was ramen. After lunch, we went to one of the Yamaha music factories for another tour. When we arrived, we were surprised to see that they had raised a Canadian flag alongside of the Japanese flag for our private tour:
We were given an interesting hour-and-a-half tour of how grand pianos are made. Below is mom trying out a very old pump organ that Yamaha made long ago:
After the tour, we could try the many instruments in their show room. Here's me trying a silent cello (with earphones on as you can see):
And here's Barbara trying the silent drums:
On Friday, Elizabeth and Carl joined us again as we went for a tour of the Hana-no-mai sake brewery. Here's Barbara with the rice to make sake:
And here's Barbara and I with sake in large bottles with labels used for special events (such as the upcoming festival in town):
Afterwards we got to sample some of the sake. Here's me doing the pouring:
And our "kanpai" (cheers) before drinking:
Our sampling of Japanese restaurants for lunch took us to a kaiten sushi restaurant (revolving sushi on the conveyor belt). Everyone enjoyed sampling the many types of sushi that came by:
Here's our table enjoying sushi:
In the afternoon, we broke into small groups to look around downtown. Ayako and I went with mom and dad to visit the music museum and the Muji store (Japanese-style Ikea). The others enjoyed shopping. We all went out for dinner for a Korean-style BBQ. We sampled 8 types of meat & seafood:
Here us cooking our meat:
Barbara found it was also good for warming her hands:
And thus the end of part 1. The next day would be when the two families met for our "wedding" day.

Sake sampling night

On Friday night, I attended a sake sampling at Heart of Gold, which is where I went for last year's Thanksgiving dinner. A friend, Matt, was holding the event and also provided some delicious food as well:
I met the local sake expert, Robert, and was treated to lots of interesting information about different types of sake from Shizuoka as well as the history of sake in this prefecture. Here is a picture of me with Robert below:
Robert had brought four types of sake from one local brewery for us to sample. We drank them in increasing order of quality. The first two went well with the food we were eating. The third was quite nice by itself. The last and best one had quite a complex taste to it and I found it went well with the ice cream that we had for dessert, although not everyone agreed with me on that.
Later on, some others joined us to help finish the bottles we had started. Although this group has met before a few times, it was my first time. I was glad to find out about this group since I haven't met many others who enjoy finding out about the different types of sake and examining them closely. I'm looking forward to the next time the sake sampling group meets.

Spring cleaning

This weekend has been mainly doing some cleaning up as well as doing some painting. There are some concrete floors in our house that I'm painting a lovely shade of green (only colour you can get for concrete). And so since that's not much to take a photo of, I'll show you the photo I took earlier this morning, when there was a nice reflection on the lake just before the sun came up.

Meeting the neighbours

When Ayako and I moved into our house last July, we went and introduced ourselves to the neighbours close to us. At the time though, we didn't join the local community group since it halfway through the year. In Japan, April is the start of year for many things including businesses, schools, as well as our local community group. So Ayako and I officially joined the group this month, paid our dues, and voted for this year's leader. Our community is the local 18 houses near us, and yet we had not met all the neighbours yet. So on Saturday night, there was an annual party for our group that we joined for the first time. We went to a local restaurant and rented a room we we enjoyed wonderful food. Our neighbour across from our house, Terasawa-san, even did some magic tricks during the night:
Here he is doing another magic trick with a coin:
It was interesting that I hadn't met many of the people who came out to the event last night, since many of them were the husbands who are working during the day. The local people I often meet are retired and are in their 70s or 80s and they decided to miss the party. Anyways, it was a good party and a good test of my Japanese.

Viewing cherry blossoms

Over the weekend, I got to go see the cherry blossoms two more times. The first time was on Saturday, where our school had a hanami (cherry blossom viewing) party. You can see the park we went to had lots of trees in full bloom:
Here's a shot of some of us having a picnic in the park:
Ayako and I stayed until dark. All the cherry blossom leaves that had dropped in the pond looked even nicer at night:
The next day we planned to see more cherry blossoms. Close to our house on Sunday, we passed a peach tree that is also in bloom at this time of year. This type of peach tree is extra nice since the leaves are either white, pink or dark pink, all on the same tree:
On Sunday, we were actually going to our local town's festival. You can see the festival in the distance with many cherry blossoms in view along the river:
We actually walked from our house with Heather and Stef. It was about a 45-minute walk:
The town has a parade during the festival. Everyone in the parade was dressed in traditional (Edo era) costumes. Check out the shoulders on these guys:
The festival is actually called the Princess Way and so here is the picture of the princess (for a day) going by us:
Ayako and I actually went to this same festival last year, and so you can see similar pictures if you look under April 2007 on my blog.

Rainy day visit

On Sunday, we had some Four Seasons teachers over for a visit. Valerie & Alan as well as Eric and his wife Tomoe. Valerie was nice enough to give Ayako a lesson on making a great stir-fry:
And Tomoe made some delicious chocolate-covered strawberries:
Together with Ayako's sushi rolls, we had a delicious lunch:
Unfortunately due the rain we had to stay indoors, but still had a good time hanging out:

Cherry blossoms party (Hanami)

Spring has come a bit early to Japan this year and thus the cherry blossoms have come out a bit early as well. In this area, they are almost at full bloom. That was good enough for us to join some friends to have a picnic under the trees on Saturday. Ayako and I showed up in the late afternoon, so I only got a few shots. We met our friends by Hamamatsu castle which you can see in the picture:
Here's a picture of a tree in full bloom:
And here is our group at night time under a big tree:

Christine's farewell party

On Friday night, Four Seasons teachers and friends went to a farewell party for one teacher, Christine, who starts a university job from April. Here are some shots from the restaurant where the party was:

Visiting the local temple / family grave

Today Ayako's parents came to visit. For the three days on either side of the vernal equinox (first day of spring), families often go and visit the family grave. They will clean it up and put some fresh flowers by it and pray. The grave below is the Odo family grave. One grave is for the whole family (grandparents and great- grandparents included). In the back of the grave there is a small door and behind this is all the bones from these ancestors.
Here is me posing with Fujio-san and Hideko-san.
This is the local temple where the family grave is. The name of the temple is Jurakuji.
Inside this temple is one of the boxes that will be used to carry the princess at our town's festival coming up. In 2 weeks, we will be going to the local festival (during cherry blossom season), which has a 'princess parade'. The princess will be carried in this box during the parade.
Here were some other shots I took while at the temple and graveyard:

We then came back home and had lunch together. We ate inari-zushi (rice in fried tofu) that Ayako had made.

Hiro's return dinner

On White Day (March 14th), Hiro (who is studying in the States) came back to Japan for a surprise visit, which was a nice present for his girlfriend, Heather. On Saturday, Ayako and I joined some friends and got to see Hiro then. We went to a Chinese restaurant where we ate lots of yummy food, and got to watch a wedding's after-party downstairs. Anyways, here's a couple of pictures from the night:

White Day

In Japan, Valentine's day is celebrated, but it's only the women who give gifts to men on that day. A month later, on March 14th, is White Day, when men give gifts to women. Since Ayako is much more a fan of me cooking or baking than buying gifts, I made her dinner as well as chocolate cake. She was very happy with the meal, although I'm a bit worried how fast she's eating the cake by herself.

Hiking in Mikkabi

Since Sunday was a beautiful spring day, Ayako and I went hiking in a nearby area, Mikkabi. We had a great view of the surrounding area. Here's a shot of the town near our home, Hosoe. It's quite rural as you can see.At the top of the mountain, we had lunch and played with some baby boars that were there:
I could get a good view of our house (which is at the bottom of the large hill). You can see the city of Hamamatsu behind the hill and so we have easy access to the city but behind the hill makes it feel kinda rural.
We continued driving and would sometimes stop at good lookout points. Here's Ayako in the car with the sunroof open since it was such a nice day:
We found a small park that had a wooden lookout that also had a good view:

Hina Matsuri (Doll Festival)

March 3 in Japan was a special festival day for girls. It is called the doll festival since young girl often have a doll display put up for them in their house. The ornamental dolls are of the Emperor, Empress, attendants, and musicians in traditional court dress of the Heian period (794-1185). You can see me here standing in front of a display a year ago at a hotel that I went to for Keisuke and Rie's wedding: Since are no young girls in our house, I was expecting the day to be uneventful. Luckily, Ayako didn't plan it that way, since she found a recipe for Hina matsuri sushi. It was three types of rice formed together in a diamond shape. It isn't a traditional food for the festival, but it was very delicious.
For dessert, we had a small strawberry layer cake (yum-yum):

Sunday drive

On Sunday, it was feeling spring-like, and so Ayako and I decided to go for a drive. Close to our house, there is a road through the mountains called "Orange Road" since the area it is close to is famous for oranges. Actually, I think of the actual road as being famous for motorcycles since there are always many cyclists there. It's a long, winding road from nowhere to nowhere, with a beautiful view, which is perfect for drives. Here is a look-out view we had during our drive:
And to the right side of the view, we could actually see our house (with the help of a friendly arrow):