Local festival

Our local matsuri was held over the weekend. We went down to the elementary school to see some of the events. We had a lottery ticket and were hoping to win the top prize of a bicycle:
Unfortunately we didn't win any of the main prizes, so our parting gift was a box of tissues:
Afterwards, we walked up behind the school to the local shrine. We were given some mochi (Japanese rice cake) for coming up to visit the shrine during the festival:

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: