JAPANEXILE

Saturday October 13th - Much the same format as the week before, except a different route, this time around the North of the lake. Once again a bus took us up to the start point - a road amongst the farmland above Toya. Which was like standing in a wind tunnel, was freezing up there! Craig was finally back in action so he joined Team Sogo (my newly coined term for the regular walkers from work, myself, Hiromi and Omori-san)

Yet again it was a fantastic day for the walk, if a little cold. Since its now Autumn here the trees around Toya all all changing into fantastic shades of red and orange. Something I rarely payed much attention to when I was in Britain, seemingly its only when you live surrounded by forest and carry a camera with you all the time that you notice these things more. Craig and I were looking after the few kids who were on the walk. Haruca-chan for the walk, one of the girls from Irie Nursery in Abuta, and two of the boys from the elementary school, who lately have been a bit of a pain in the arse. Haruca made a habit of running along dragging me behind her in little bursts before she’d fall over again. And by halfway through I was giving her a piggyback the whole way, 7km or however long it was, seemingly was too far for her. Main reason for this post was to draw attention to some of the photos I took. Check the Photography section for the whole lot!  Album Link

Saturday 6th October - The title is pretty self explanatory, I went on a walk, with, wait for it, waterfalls. Once again I had been blessed with a fantastic day for it, and as I was feeling in a particularly photographic mood I borrowed Craig’s rather awesome camera for the morning, as he was still unable/not allowed to do strenuous physical activity

Bright and early at 9am I met Hiromi and Omori-san at the Sogo centre along with a fair few other people at the Sogo centre to get the bus up to the start point at the top of the mountian. Of course we’d only be walking down the mountain to see the waterfalls, what kind of fool walks up! Despite having seen this several times before, I was surprised to see that almost everyone taking part was on the northern side of 50yrs+ All of whom looked like they are prepared to trek through the wilderness, kitted out with walking sticks and hydration packs. Only so much I can say about the walk, it was a really nice day, very calming, beautiful scenery. Only upset was that in my desire to get a better photo I caused a minor landslide onto the unsuspecting pensioners below me, which cut some poor old mans leg quite badly. I felt pretty awful about it, seems he took it in his stride and forgave me thankfully. Either that or no-one ever found out it was me…

I adored having Craig’s camera for this. And very thankful for the 10x zoom, I genuinely considered getting a similiar “proper” camera, but I eventually decided against it. The convenience of being able to carry a camera with me at all times cannot be underestimated. Photo album for the day.

Thursday October 4th - Next day I arrived at the Sakura nursery ready to be mercilessly attacked by a barrage of lego, only to be told today was also picnic day! I could hardly believe my luck. We got a bus down to the same campsite as the day before. Before then picnic was the obligatory walk along the lakeside. Which from a photography point of view was fantastic, absolutely no wind that day, so I was blessed with some fantastic photo opportunities of the lake, even if I only had my phone to take advantage of them. The staff at Sakura nursery made a big effort to try and talk to me on the walk, its tough as they know literally no English, but with some dictionary use we managed to get a few sentences across to each other. On this walk I also discovered a new found love for climbing trees, which apart from being great fun impresses the kids no end. Not that I’m a show off or anything. Only problem is that the kids then try to copy me, which is obviously tough considering they are barely over 2ft high sometimes. Eventually we got to our picnic spot where we faced an onslaught of dragon flies much to the amusement of the kids. After eating it was playtime once again, tho only for a short while as the bus came to pick us up pretty quick.

Even armed with only my phone I managed to snap a fair few photos of the day. Due to time constraints I’m combining any photos from the same place in one album. So to see all the photos see the Sakura Nursery album for October. Although as usual I’m putting my favourites for the day below. Visit the photography page for the album!

On two consequetive gloriously sunny days at the beginning of October I was lucky enough to be working at the Toya and Sakura nurseries respectively. Craig was unfortunately still incapacitated with the ol’ mocho so he missed on on what were two brilliant days!
So up first was the Toya Nursery day. On my schedule the day had been written as a “Nursery Hike” so I was fully clad in walking boots and windproof trousers ready for action. The hike turned out to only be from the nursery toward to one of the larger campsites on the edge of lake Toya. Which is all path and only takes 15mins normally. Although with the long train of mother’s and prams it took rather longer in fact. Taiki was for one reason or another absent so I was left to figure out what was going on and what I was supposed to do by myself.

We set up camp underneath a large oak tree, I don’t think you could choose a better picnic spot actually. Nice view, space, shade, and sun if you wanted it, Perfect! It was quite interesting watching how differently the kids behave when their parents are with them. So much more shy, and they seemed to cry so much more, was a bit strange. Not everyone had a parent with them however. In particular Yui and Rinkou, two of my favourite kids, and so I was assigned to them for the parent child events for the day.

First up was pretty simple, kids and parents split into two teams. Parent and child then run along together a short distance, grab a ribbon, and tie it on to then end of the ribbon placed by the previous pair, first team who’s ribbon reaches the start line wins! I don’t actually remember who won, perhaps it was one of those “Well everyone is a winner” things - which I generally dislike. Next was the main event, sticker collecting (which I didn’t realise at first) so I didn’t quite know what was going on. Rinkou and Yui both sprinted off dragging my confused self behind them. We ran around in circles for a bit as Yui and Rinkou couldn’t decide which way to go. The dispute was settled with a game of Janken (Japanese Rock Paper Scissors) and so we ran with Rinkou to the nearest teacher. I finally realised why we were running around, game was to go to each teacher, who asked you to do a little task, which when completed would get the kids a sticker. The tasks when pretty fun, things like skipping together (harder than you think), popping balloons by sitting on them. The latter of which was so funny to watch, as neither of my girls could do it and just bounced off each time! After collecting five stickers we ran back to the start for the finish…or so I had hoped. Rinkou had forgotten to get her stickers so I had to run around all of them again to find out which one she hadn’t got. Good exercise I guess.

Rest of the day was spent playing around as usual, large scale Ninja fights, collecting conkers, tom the human climbing frame, that sort of thing. Even more fun than usual as we had more room to run about. Namiko had packed me quite possibly the greatest packed lunch ever as well, which just sweetened the deal on an already awesome day. Only downer had to be that my camera inexplicably stopped working, so I was near photo less for the day! Fear not however, I manged to take a couple before it died!