WANISAN

It’s getting cooler which is one sure sign that fall is coming, but it really is obvious when you get out and walk and look at the trees.

We usually walk along the river behind our house because it is a great place to go in the evening and after dark, but when we have time to walk in the mornings, we often go to Heiwa Koen.

Last week we had the chance so we went walking in Heiwa Koen fairly early in the morning. It was cool, but not cold, and the air was crisp and clean. We enjoy walking in the wooded and grassy area there, but we can’t often go due to our schedules.

We also saw the rice in the paddies there that are cultivated by the park club. It’s a sort of ‘city people can have the chance to be farmers’ thing, I think. They have done a lot of work there on the small stream and the levies around the area, but they also have to worry about the crows coming to eat the crop they are trying so hard to grow.

Here is a picture of their solution and also some foxtails growing nearby.

I started off my semester on a good note by attending a small concert on Sunday evening. The whole family went to the Korean Cultural Center to see a couple of up and coming Korean pop singers, Soul Cry and KiHyun.

They worked hard and did a pretty good show though I would have liked to have heard more songs where they either played the piano or guitar. I think there were only 2 songs with KiHyun playing the piano, and both were better than the songs with the canned backing tracks. I’m sorry to say though that they also butchered the lyrics to “Desperado” which was one of the piano songs.  I know how difficult it is to sing in another language, but if you’re a professional performer, you have to get it better than this.

The Korean ballads they sang together were good, and their interaction with the crowd was also fun even with a small crowd of about 150.

It was a fun evening, and I’m glad we went. I bought the CD of the TV drama that has one of their songs on the soundtrack, but I’m still waiting to see if they make it big 😉

I did get autographs and photos though as you can see below…

A couple of weekends ago my wife and I went on a Saturday excursion to Mie prefecture to walk in the mountains and see some beautiful waterfalls.

The area is called Akame 48 Waterfalls – but there aren’t really 48 waterfalls though there are certainly a large number of them in varying sizes, heights and widths. Some really beautiful weather for our day and the walk was not too hard. I saw a lot of huff-and-puffers we passed along the way, but we walk a lot so we made the nearly 18 kilometers for our day fairly easily.

It was a 3 hour bus ride there, and 3 hours again to get home. That ride back was not so comfortable after all of that walking. Still, it wasn’t too bad and it is always nice to get out with my wife when we get the chance to enjoy a nice, slow time together.

Here’s a link to some more information about the place we visited:

http://www.travel-around-japan.com/k54-04-akame-48-waterfalls.html

Here is one of my favorite pictures we took there.

Akame waterfall

So, this happened…

We were outside puttering around in the garden when we saw what looked like a race to ‘somewhere’ between two snails. We have a fair number of snails in the garden, so seeing them isn’t a big thing, but these two were seriously moving towards something we could be sure about…

We’ve of course lost a few on the deck because they get stepped on, but I try hard to not disturb them. I don’t know why, but for some reason I really like these guys and enjoy watching them. They are out most mornings early.

Some students from Aichi Shukutoku University are invading my house this evening.

This will not be good for my diet …