Sheep Festival

Last Sunday, Ayako and I drove up north of Hamamatsu to watch a festival celebrating sheep. Actually, the reason we found out about the festival was that we knew that they serve handmade soba (buckwheat noodles) and we wanted to try them again. The only problem is that you can only get them during the fall when the leaves are turning and everyone flocks to the area or when a festival is on. Therefore, the first thing we did at the festival was enjoy some handmade soba and some tempura made from mountain plants (on the table in front of Ayako):
After lunch, we looked around at some of the stalls selling crafts and tried some other drinks and snacks that were for sale. Next was the first main event, which was sheep shearing:
It was definitely slower than the sheep shearing competitions that I saw back home at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair:
The second main event was a race between the 7 lambs that had been born in the past two months. They each had a different colour ribbon on them and you could bet on the winning sheep with your festival entry ticket:
I chose the lamb with the green ribbon since he was the youngest but wasn't the smallest so I guessed he was good at running for his dinner. And so the race began:

As you can hear, I was excited that my lamb was the winner. Everyone who voted for the green lamb received a small lamb doll made out of wool. Very exciting.

UPDATE: We found out that while we were watching the lamb race, we were being filmed for TV. A number of our neighbours saw us on TV that night and were excited to tell us about it when we saw them.

Birds with their prey

I've been lucky living in our house by the lake since I can sometimes get some good photos of the birds that live in this area. I was surprised when I looked through my blog that there weren't any of these photos, so I'll start putting some up.

The first set is of birds catching fish. Last week I got a couple of good shots of a Black Kite, which is a common bird of prey in this area:

About one month ago, I got this shot of a Cormorant trying to eat a whole eel. It took a number of attempts.
My favourite set of shots is of this Grey Heron eating a fish whole:

Firefly viewing

We had many friends join us from both Hamamatsu and Toyohashi this past Saturday to go see the fireflies in Forest Park. I've previously tried taking photos of them (photos here), but it doesn't work so well. Instead, I've posted some of the photos of the daytime activities and the BBQ that took place:

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.

On our bicycle ride home

On our way home from Mosaiculture (see post below), we came across some Gray Starlings sitting on the telephone wires:
Actually, there were thousands of them (only a fraction in this shot):
Making it difficult for some of them to find a parking spot:
We also passed by an old stone building that I've always wanted to take a photo of and so was glad that I finally got the chance:
And then tonight, the moon was magnificent as it rose in the east tonight:
This all wrapped up a very nice day.

Smalls animals near the house

I found a stag beetle on the window screen today:
Stag beetles are fairly popular in Japan but not as popular as Japanese rhinoceros beetles. Lots of kids love collecting rhinoceros beetles as pets and you can find lots of them for sale at pet stores. If you find a really large rhinoceros beetle, you can even sell it to a pet store.

There's even a National Rhinoceros Beetle Sumo Championship:

I also found a grasshopper sitting on my bicycle:
These days on my way to work I've been noticing lots of small animals coming out. For the past two weeks, there have been small crabs playing 'chicken' with the bicycles on the bicycle path. And yesterday, I saw a turtle just to the side of the bicycle path. Of course, as the days get warmer, I see more and more mullet (type of fish) jumping out of the water to get some fresh air.

Nature walk

On the weekend, Ayako and I went for a short nature walk in a nearby nature area that I found about a year ago:
We found a frog:
And a dragonfly:
And two types of butterflies:

A lot of the walking was on a boardwalk over marshy areas and so we found some great raspberries, but they were out of reach for us to eat:
We did find a stand selling mulberries on the side of the road, and so Ayako bought a small box of them:
It was my first time to see what mulberries look like and to eat them raw...very yummy!

Moonset

On Sunday, I was brushing my teeth before going to bed when I noticed that the moon was really low in the sky. Ayako and I were able to watch a pretty yellow moon set below a mountain range. It was my first ever moonset.

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):

Looking for red leaves

On Sunday, Ayako and I met up with our friends, Eiki and Ryoko, and went up to Mori-machi to visit Okuni shrine:
I went up there the past two years as well since it's a good place to see red leaves in fall, although unfortunately, this year the leaves are a bit late and so there weren't as many red leaves as we had hoped.
We did get to see some of the kids dressed up for shichi-go-san, which is a traditional rite of passage in Japan for three and seven year-old girls and three and five year-old boys:
We could also see brand new cars being blessed by Shinto priests:
I have often played just a bit with my camera for trying new shots, but on this day, I tried to using the manual setting and was able to get some good shots. Here are some of the photos I took: