We Take a Walk in Matsue City

We took a walk along the moat of Matsue castle on the first day of our trip to my hometown.

At that day, Emi still had enough energy to enjoy walking and eating sweets.

It's one day before Emi caught a cold and was sick in bed.

My Mother's 88th Birthday

On our way back to Tokyo from Shimane, I took a picture of Mt. Fuji

My two daughters, my wife and I went back to my home town Shimane prefecture to celebrate my mother's 88th birthday last week.

My brother arranged a river-viewing room at locally famous restaurant Naniwakan for the celebration party.

Front Left: my brother, Front Center: my mother, Front Right: my sister in law,
Back Left: Rina, Back center: me, Back Right: my wife Kiyono

Unfortunately, my daughter Emi was sick in bed because she caught a cold at the day of the celebration party.

I feel very very happy to celebrate the day with my mother and other family members.
I sincerely pray that my mother's healthy and happy life last as long as possible.

My mother likes flowers. She likes to grow vegetables and flowers, and also she likes hand-knitting.

Cafe Ammonite

 Even the season in Japan, according to the calendar, has changed into autumn, it's been very hot these days.

I went to Cafe Ammonite with my wife the other day.

The cafe was located in the suburbs of Utsunomiya city surrounded by vegetable fields.

The foods they served were very nice.

But, it's a bit hard to access to the shop because there were no nearby bus stops, no train stations and streets around the shop were very complicated.

Cafe del Olive

Cafe del Olive is a restaurant which was renovated of an old warehouse.

The walls of the warehouse was made of thick locally famous ohya-stone.

As is always the case with a warehouse, it had an entrance with solid-looking metal doors.



My wife and I went up through a narrow stairs to the second floor and had lunch there with a quiet atmosphere that many old Japanese houses have.

Orion Wine Bar

My wife and I had lunch at Orion Wine Bar the other day. 

Nice atmosphere and good taste dishes gave us a pleasant afternoon break.

Soba Cafe YuAn

I went to Soba Cafe YuAn with my wife the other day.

Soba noodles are served either chilled with a dipping sauce, or in hot broth as a noodle soup.

We ordered two dishes of chilled soba, sweets, a cup of tea and a cup of coffee.

Chilled soba is often served on a sieve-like bamboo tray with a dipping sauce on the side.

Cold soba is very nice for lunch especially on a hot summer day.

Obon Festival

We had an Obon holiday last week.
My company gave us one week paid leave from August 12 to 16.
Obon is a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one's ancestors.
It's said that the spirits of ancestors are supposed to revisit the household altars during this season.
Many people visit their ancestral graves and make offerings of flowers and incense during the holiday.

I've had a rather quiet week; I went to a forest and brook park, restaurants for lunch, and Nasu highland for getting relief from the heat.

The festival ends with Toro Nagashi, or the floating of lanterns. Paper lanterns are illuminated and then floated down rivers symbolically signaling the ancestral spirits' return to the world of the dead.

Yukata Go Well With Matsuri

Many young Japanese girls love to wear traditional clothes, 'yukata' in summer festivals.

Yukata are kind of summer version of kimono.

Kids are wearing 'happi' or straight-sleeved coat in the second and third pictures.

Happi are also traditional clothes to festivals in Japan.

Miya Matsuri Summer Festival in 2013

It's a Miya Matsuri summer festival today and yesterday. 

Many people came to the center of Utsnomiya city to watch kids' dancing, marching bands, kids' ballet, a lot of genres of musical performances and carrying mikoshi by young guys.

Kids performances were really enjoyable.

Ten-nou-sai Summer Festival 2013

Ten-nou-sai summer festival was held a week ago on Sunday.
Each group carried an Omikoshi or a portable shrine and ran up 95 steps to the shrine gate.

They competed the time how short it would take.
Yes, it's a really tough race.

After the ten-nou-sai festival, the real summer season would come to our town.

Utsunomiya Animation Festival 3

“Tochiotome25” is the name of a Utsunomiya idol girl group.
The average age of them is said to be sixteen.

The group is not so famous as AKB48, but the group members have a lot of fans locally.

They sang several original songs with powerful dancing at the Orion Square stage on the Animation Festival day.

Utsunomiya Animation Festival 2

 Akihabara is a district in Tokyo where many obsessive animation, manga, and video game fans are known to gather.


Orion Square in Utsunomiya city became a little Akihabara on the day of Animation Festival.

Utsunomiya Animation Festival

Animation Festival was held in my city Utsunomiya today.

As a part of the festival, animation painted cars and animation geeks came not only from all over our prefecture but also even from neighboring prefectures.

Some people wore animation heroes' costumes, danced to the music and were walking along the streets in their own 'cosplay' clothes.

It's really fun to watch those cars and the participants.