Chichibu flower festival and Mitake

There is a train line near our house called the Seibu Chichibu line that I have been really wanting to take to check out the Chichibu national forest. Well, I found an organic market off that line and I thought we should make the trek out there to check it out. On the way, we kept seeing posters with pictures of big forests of what looked like fairy duster flowers. Low and behold, the stop we got off at was happening to have a festival for these flowers. All the locals had little stands set up in front of their houses and you took a little path around the town looking at crafts and various autumn related goods until you came upon a forest full of Japanese fair dusters. Gotta love Japan.

Here are what we thought to be some type of tomato which we later discovered is a decorative plant. Good thing we asked someone what is was before we tasted it. It is now decorating our kitchen countertop until we can figure out what the heck to do with it.

This was a cute little corner garden of someone's house.

They had a bunch of little decorative baskets filled with ornamental gourds.

Here we are in front of some of the fairy dusters.

They planted about 4 acres worth of these flowers in this forest area that follows along the river.

They had another area planted with these wild flowers.

If you recall, I hiked Mt Mitake in the first month or so that I was here. It is a very steep incline the whole way up. There are many beautiful hikes when you get to the top but last time I was too tired to do any of them because of the hike up the hill. So this time, we decided to take the cable car up to the top and then hike around the mountain. There is a small village at the top of the mountain as well as a shrine. This was one of the buildings at the top with a traditional thatched roof. The village was very dog friendly and we brought Ethan along. He was allowed to sit next to our table in the restaurant where we ate.

There were two waterfalls that we hiked to and a beautiful natural rock garden along the way. Everything was covered with moss and we hiked next to a stream the whole way. There were many hikers out but it was not too crowded.

This gum vending machine cracked me up. It was 100 yen for 9 pieces of gum. That is about a dollar. They had many different flavors including: blueberry, black black, caramel and green tea.

You may be wondering how we got to Mt. Mitake with the dog. You can bring your dog on the train but they have to be in a little carrying case or bag. So, Ethan has been learning to ride in a bag and he is not thrilled about it. He does however like to go on adventures so I think he is beginning to realize that the trade off works to his advantage. He is a big hit among the Japanese people and a real conversation starter. People are constantly saying how cute he is and asking what type of dog he is. Sometimes people just start talking to me in Japanese and it is quite embarrassing to tell them I don't understand.

Last weekend we went to another Japanese baseball game. This time we went to the stadium that is really close to our house. Sometimes Quinn and I ride our bikes up and around the stadium and back home. It is a beautiful ride and the stadium is a dome that is open around the middle. Kind of hard to explain. If you go to this link it will show you some good pictures of it http://www.seibu-group.co.jp/rec/dome/index.html. The game was an exciting one and the score final score was 10 to 6. This time we were smart and brought our own snacks and drinks so we didn't need to buy anything. We made friends with the people around us by giving them "American snacks." This is always a big hit among the Japanese. Now we have another week of work until more exploring. Hope you all have a great week.

That's it for now. Miss you all. Send some emails. I would love to hear from you!