Some things...

...are different and some are the same

stuffed toys made from kimono fabric pieces

These are mobiles but there are many kinds of stuffed toys.

Watarase River Gorge

The narrowest point of the Watarase River is in Midori City going through a deep rocky gorge. The "egg" rock is in a pothole created by the erosion of the swirling water.

Renoir at the National Art Center, Tokyo

Shinji and Masae joined us to go see the Auguste Renoir exhibition, this weekend. It is a big show with about 80 works from museums around the world. This painting, featured on the advertisement, includes motifs inspired by Japan.

New Year Drumming

To celebrate the New Year, we enjoyed a concert of Japanese drumming. Click on the videos to see/hear them.

Birthday Hike

Actually the day before my birthday, a hike up Mt. Haruna-Fuji, an old volcano in Gunma prefecture, was energizing for the new year. On the way up, we had a nice view of Mt. Asama which is an active volcano (the photo shows the steam coming off the mountain, not clouds at the top). After hiking down a snowy, slippery trail, we stopped at the hot spring at the bottom for a relaxing soak; later back in town, we went to an izakaiya (type of tavern for drinking/eating). We had a spicy seafood stew (nabe). The stew is cooked at the table. You can see what we started with and what it looked like after cooking. It was just right after the cold hike. Of course, M. joined us for the food part.

Trip to Karuizawa

It is a work place tradition to have an end of the year party called "bonenkai". It is a chance for your work group (minus spouses) to go out to eat and drink a lot to celebrate successfully completing your work year before the New Year holidays. This year we went to a hotel in resort town in the mountains, Karuizawa. Most everyone drove but because I had a meeting in Tokyo until 5PM, I had to take the Shinkansen bullet train to Karuizawa. When I arrived it was snowing and continued to snow all night. We went out to a restaurant and had lots of good Japanese food and plenty of beer and sake. After, we went back to the hotel and soaked in the hot spring (outside) while watching the snow fall on the surrounding garden. Very relaxing. We drove back down the mountain to town on Saturday afternoon.