Chrysanthemum Fower Festival

When I went to Kitsuregawa town the other day, I happened to find a local chrysanthemum flower festival.

This kind of the festival displaying chrysanthemum flowers is quite popular all over Japan in this season.

The flower of chrysanthemum is special to Japanese and has been cherished for a long time.

Because, it is the symbol of the Japanese royal family.

Do you know that the Japanese passport has a chrysanthemum emblem?

Miso Shop Opens a Cafe on its Second Floor.

Left :'Aogen Kobo' is the name of the miso shop

fermented rice yogurt

A Shop, near my home, selling miso has recently opened a cafe on its second floor.

Miso is a traditional Japanese seasoning produced by fermenting soybeans with salt and the fungus,

My wife and I went to the shop and had lunch.

The lunch menu included fermented rice yogurt, fried fish with salad, a bowl of miso soup, boiled rice with beans and pumpkin cake with honey & fruits.

Among all the dishes, miso soup was top and perfect.

This Year's Tennis Team League Finishes.

Utsunomiya Companies' Tennis Team League finished last October.

Our team is in a  5th league consisting of eight teams.

We couldn't be promoted to 4th league this year same as last year, because we had lost a match against SUBARU which is a car and small plane manufacturing company's team.

UCTTL are divided five categories from a top 1st league to a bottom 5th league.

Only one winner team in each league is given a right to battle against an upper league's worst placed team.

It's called a replacement match. We couldn't even get a chance to battle a replacement match this year.

Anyway, we had a party to reward every member's effort of practicing tennis and to pledge next year's promotion up to 4th league. lol.

2013 Japan Cup Criterium in Utsunomiya

Japan Cup Criterium was held at the street just in front of my condominium on October 20th.

I took several pictures from the balcony.

The linked movie is far better and exciting.

Please, just take a look.