Christmas Butterflies

"Christmas Butterflies" Those aren't words that I hear together very often. For a better view of the butterfly Christmas tree, take a look at the photos in my last post, but this video will give you an idea of the atmosphere in the room. A little odd, but beautiful (unless you don't like butterflies, of course).

Moka Trip With Mondo & Aiko

On Sunday, the four of us visited Moka City. I've posted photos before of the beautiful rose garden that Nozomi & I usually visit in June. That garden is just one small part of a very large park that also has walking and biking paths, nature viewing areas, a large conservatory with tropical plants (and animals), and many other attractions. We went for a walk there, saw and heard herons (or maybe cranes) and woodpeckers, and spent time in the conservatory. An annual event there is the butterfly Christmas tree: a tree decorated with "Christmas chrysalises" and the butterflies flying around the room after they emerge. A little strange and rather beautiful at the same time.
After our walk, we went to the Brazilian buffet restaurant that I've mentioned a few times before and had a fantastic lunch. I discovered VERY sweet Brazilian style coffee as we were finishing our meal and enjoyed that with the coconut cake, flan, Christmas jello and squash dessert they were serving.
Next was a visit to the station where I took the video of the Christmas train that I posted last time. I'm including pics of the steam engine, our group, and a couple of different versions of Santa, a reindeer, and a Christmas helper who was too tall to be an elf. We didn't have time to ride the steam train, but we'll save that for another time.

Christmas Train

We spent the day today together with our friends Mondo & Aiko who came to Utsunomiya for a visit. We went to Moka City together and enjoyed a wonderful walk in the nature park, the Brazilian buffet restaurant for lunch, and an upclose view of the Moka Christmas Train. I'll post photos next, but first here's a video of the train leaving the station.

(Video is offline.)

Yunoko Lake Trip

Earlier this fall we took a trip to a beautiful park in the mountains that I had wanted to see for a long time. Friends and family that have visited here might remember Chuzenji Lake. If you continue driving further up into the mountains, there are smaller lakes and areas for hiking. We walked the trail that circles Yunoko Lake. It takes only about an hour, and we enjoyed wonderful scenery and comfortable weather for hiking. Some of the trees were just starting to change to autumn colors. Half way around the lake, there is an amazing, up close view from the top of a waterfall. The video I'm including was taken there.

(Video is offline.)

Squirrel Park

I've written before about the small, interesting city near Utsunomiya called Moka. Its train station has an interesting, unique design, and is also one of the stops of the local steam train that operates on weekends. There's also a huge, beautiful park where we like to go walking and see the rose garden every spring. Surprisingly for a town of its size, Moka has a significant population of Japanese-Brazilian returnees, so there's some interesting cultural mixing, and a delicious Brazilian restaurant I've also mentioned before. But for a long time, Nozomi & I have thought about visiting the squirrel park. It's a kind of mini-zoo that features, yes, squirrels. For all you Oregonians, you're probably thinking, "why would you make a zoo where you can visit squirrels when you can just go to the local city park and see them jumping around wild in trees?" That would be an exellent question in Oregon, but in Japan, it's much less common to see squirrels in the wild.
Last month, on a rare weekday that both of us had off work, we visited the squirrels! And the prairie dogs, koi, chickens, ponies and ostriches. When we arrived at the park, there were only three other cars in the parking lot, so at first I thought it might be closed. We walked up to the gate, saw that it was open, and heard music playing inside (music box versions of pop songs - that got annoying after a while...) We walked past a souvenir shop. It was empty. We walked past a snack bar. It was empty. We walked past a restaurant. It was empty. We walked to the ticket counter. It was empty. It was starting to feel a bit eerie. I finally realized that on a late fall weekday, when almost all children are in school, the squirrel park is not a busy place. That actually turned out pretty nice.
We took some pictures of the statue garden, the koi swimming near the dinosaurs (well, look at the picture), and the giant squirrel mascot statue (he had a name, but we've both forgotten it). Inside the walled area with the squirrels and prairie dogs, we saw one father and daughter. They stayed about 20 more minutes after we arrived, and then exited, leaving the two of us as the only guests in the park. And the focus of the undivided attention of the squirrels and prairie dogs begging for food. They entertained us for over an hour, and then finally a staff person came into the exhibit and took our money for tickets (500 yen each). He came back later with a large bag filled with sweet potatoes, so we got a bonus!
After leaving that section, we walked to another area with the animals I mentioned above, so it was actually a fun little zoo. I normally don't include quite so many pictures in one blog post, but even after deleting several, I thought many of the remaining photos of Nozomi with the little critters were funny, so I'll just include the rest. The picture of me with the prairie dog that Nozomi took made me laugh; it looks like we are having a conversation. I really was saying hello to him, but I think he was probably just thinking, "hey, give me food!"

Fall Colors 2012

Last month, Nozomi & I went walking a couple of times in parks with beautiful fall color. Most of these pictures were taken in Utsunomiya Chuo Koen (central park). One of the times we visited, there was a chrysanthemum festival taking place, so we got a bonus range of colors added to the already amazing trees.