Obon floating candles

During this holiday time in August, 3 days are for Obon, which is the time for familys' ancestors' spirits to return home for a brief visit. There are different types of events that go on, such as a special dance and singing that is done. Another thing is floating candles on a lake. Our neighbourhood made a good number of floats for the candles and the were put in the lake at 8pm tonight. We watched them from our balcony and so they looked like little fireflies on the lake.

Bicycle riding near our our house

Since it's a relaxing holiday week, I've been able to take more casual bicycle rides. Ayako and I went yesterday and there were some great photos that I wanted to take. So I set out today to take some of them. This is my usual bicycle ride that takes about 30 minutes. I go to the areas where I can avoid traffic as much as possible. So here we go...we start off on the bicycle path in front of our house:
Past the boats:
And a heron:
Then to the rice fields:
It was a nice sunny day as usual:
A close-up of the rice for you...should be ready in a month or two:
To keep the crows away, there are various devices used...such as CDs:
plastic bags:
and regular scarecrows...complete with heads:
and some with only heads:
We then get onto some quiet country lanes:
past some a new housing development:
and up into the hills:
The top of the hill is full with Mandarin orange orchards, which means that only farmers come up here and there's nice quiet roads to cycle along. The trees in the photo are full of oranges, but since they are still green, they'll be hard to see:
Nice quiet roads:
Then back down towards to the lake:
Along some nice bends:
Getting closer:
And back down to the rice fields. You can see the highway going over the lake in this shot:
Some signs showing that downtown Hamamatsu is 14km away, the speed limit is 40km/h, and there's no parking allowed on the side of the road:
There's tons of mirrors in Japan to show you if somebody is coming around a corner and warning you to be careful:
A children's crosswalk:
The double-headed panda telling you to stop, look left and look right:
And back to the rice fields as the sun starts getting lower in the sky:
Rows of rice:
A woman working in the rice fields:
And back to the lake:
A heron relaxing on a log in the sunlight:
Then back along the bicycle path:
And back home before sunset:
Hope you enjoyed the bicycle ride.

Trip to Nikko & Yokohama

We have a week off work for the Obon holiday and for my first time in Japan, I'm not taking a trip to Canada. Ayako and I decided to start off the holiday by taking a 3-day trip up to Nikko and Yokohama. When we travel during the holidays, we buy special discount train tickets, which saves us a bunch of money. The only problem is that we can only use the local trains (no express trains or shinkansens). So our first day was only travelling to a city called Utsunomiya, where we could easily access Nikko the next day.
We found out that Utsunomiya is famous for gyoza (Chinese dumplings) and so we asked where the most famous gyoza restaurant was. As you can see from the 30-minute line-up we got into, it was quite famous:
We finally got inside and enjoyed lots of gyozas. We figured out that the restaurant is not famous for super delicious gyozas, but for good-tasting, large-sized gyozas at a cheap price.
The next day we took a train up to Nikko, which has a number of temples that are part of the World Heritage Sites.
We walked around with the many other visitors that were there that day, enjoying the sites.


For some reason, the most famous part of the temples are these three monkeys (hear no evil, speak no evil & see no evil) which are on a fairly regular building there:
The temples are quite ornate compared to most temples in Japan and have a strong Chinese influence:
On the above temple, there were strange-looking elephants carved in it. Supposedly the artist had never actually seen an elephant before:
A very large, ornate gate to more temples:

At one section of a temple there was a ring toss game that both Ayako and I tried:

After a full morning, we enjoyed a late lunch of yubadon and enjoyed a local beer:
On our third day, we took an early train to Yokohama to see some of its sites. We started off at Sogo department store, which is the world's largest department store. I actually wanted to see the Ukiyoe museum on the 6th floor, which was fairly good. We also did some shopping and enjoyed trying out some fantastic kaleidoscopes at a special display there. After that, we got on the train again and went to Chinatown:
The Chinatown in Yokohama is the largest in Japan, and while it is smaller than the one in Toronto, it was more jam-packed with stuff and so a bit more exciting in my opinion. We had congee for lunch, which Ayako was really looking forward to:
We also did lots of snacking while we walked around Chinatown. And here's a Chinese temple we passed by:
On our way back to the station from Chinatown, we walked along Motomachi street, which had lots of fancy shops. I enjoy a ginger ale on the way at the classic-style Coca-cola machine:
And then we were on the train again, back to Hamamatsu. It was an enjoyable trip and a great way to start of the holiday week.