A Hike in the Mountains

Ayako and I had been planning on going camping this weekend, but with Sunday's weather forecast showing rain all day, we decided to go for a day-long hike on Saturday. We took the train to the Shizuoka-Aichi prefecture boundary and walked along the mountain ridge separating the two prefectures.
Before we started going up the mountain, I was able to get some good photos of a grey-headed lapwing that was flying around the rice fields:

We stopped by an nice old temple on the way:
And Ayako was happy to find some wild raspberries to eat:
Along part of the ridge, there were a number of large trees that had come down during a strong. I'm wondering if it was from the big typhoon that hit last November.
There were also some wetlands that we could wander through...
and see some birds and insects there as well:
It was a beautiful day and so I'm glad we went on the hike. We slept well that night though.

Barber Shop in Iwata

Ayako's sister and husband opened up a barber shop a month ago in the city next to us (Iwata) and so we could enjoy a visit with them and I could get my hair cut as well:
Here's a shot of Sumiko and little Sana, who is growing quickly:
After the haircut, we got to look around their new house, which is connected to the barber shop:
We could also get some photos with Sana:
Sumiko's family is now living with her aunt and grandmother. Here's a photo with grandma, who is 96 years old now:
Neo and Ryo returned to the house later on and so it was nice to spend some time with them too:

Rainbow & Sunset photos

On the train coming home today, I saw a full rainbow in the sky. It had rained all day, so I guess seeing one was not surprising, but it was beautiful over the rice fields as I came home. I messaged Ayako and she could get part of the rainbow in a photo:
She also took the below photo while the sun was setting. I asked her what setting she had used on the camera since I didn't think it could naturally be this beautiful. She told me that it was actually this orange colour though and even the lake looked orange:

Golden Week Activities - Hamamatsu festival

We were joined by some friends from Toyohashi today and went down to the beach to see the kite festival:

We could see the kites flying well before we got to the area:

Here I am in front of one of the kites:And here are some of the friends that joined us:
Here is Ayako with Yoko:
In the next few photos, you can see some of the groups with their areas' flags and them flying their kites:

In was quite windy and so the kites were getting tangled more often than I've seen before:

In the video below, you can here the bugles that are played and you can see some groups together trying to keep their kites up in the air while trying to untangle them:

After, we headed downtown for the international food festival

Ayako and I didn't stay to watch parade of floats this year since we had free tickets to go see a movie. We saw Alice in Wonderland, which I thought was alright, although I still don't like wearing the 3D glasses. After the movie, we were able to get a close up look at one of the floats (yatai) all lit up at night:

Golden Week Activities

Golden Week started on Saturday for me this year. I usually have about a week off for the holidays, but I only have 5 days off this year. On Saturday, Eiki and Emi came for a visit. Eiki just got back from a year spent working in Brazil, so it was interesting listening to all of his stories.
On Sunday, we had a fairly relaxed day, but did enjoy going for a bicycle ride. I tried to find some new places to visit, so we found some remote areas near us. Here are some Fuji flowers blooming:
We had a good view of our house from across the lake on the way back. It's hard to see in this picture, but our house is on the left side of the picture:
Here is a close-up of our house (in the centre of the photo):
Here was a nice shot shortly before sunset:
On Monday, we went for a drive up into the mountains to find a shrine on the top of one of the mountains. I love driving in the mountains since the roads are only single lanes and so the trees feel very close. Here was the entrance to the shrine:
They were having a special ceremony that day since they had picked new tea leaves the day before. Here you can see the tea leaves drying:
Here is the shrine on the top of the mountain:
You can see how high up we are in the following photo:
There were some nice mountain birds that I don't get to see where we live: