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):