Lights in Otawara City

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Did you remember to mail your New Year's cards?

Miyanohara girls

crossing the Miyakan:

kokeshi dolls

and not from Utsunomiya, but from Sendai of all places (yeah, we do travel from time to time):

To find out more about Mr. Y's trip to Sendai, read his post on my other blog (no worries, he wrote it in English).

Polishing rice

To find out more about how we polish our own rice, visit our other blog and read this post.

Happy Hogswatch everybody!!!

this house in Kanuma single-handedly fulfilled the city's seasonal illumination obligations:

so nice to not have to worry about your electric bill:

Kanuma

and that's your hiragana lesson for tonight:

parking - japanese style

Now, try to do that without a rear view camera and a digital parking helper.

at the science park

View from our door

typical Japan - power lines:

Ashikaga Flower Park one more time

splendid:

magnificent:

fairy tale:

or Venice:

field of dreams:

and a swan lake:

To read about the winter illumination in Ashikaga, visit my other blog.


And this is my entry for Show Me Japan. Click on the badge below to see more wonderful photos from all over Japan.

Ashikaga Flower Park - Winter Illumination

more photos will come tomorrow.

Japanese suburbia

suburbs, the same the world over:

Gas

This is what we have in front of your apartment building:

Gas for cooking and heating up water. Four apartments - four gas bottles. And for some reason it scares me to no end.

Not a river but a stream

a stream runs through the temple grounds at one of the places where I work.

This is a Watery Wednesday entry.

Gone shopping

Happy Equation

that's what "he" stands for, and what it's supposed to mean, I really don't know. But Utsunomiya city hall seems to like this slogan a lot.

Ancient houses

Buildings from the Jomon era (14 000 BCE to 400 BCE) at Seizan Park in Utsunomiya.

They're about 8 meters tall.

I'd say "not bad" for a bunch of Neolithic barbarians. Not bad at all.
To learn more about the Jomon people and Seizan Park visit my other blog and read this post.

Happy Hanukkah!

The official Kanuma city logo - it always makes me scratch my head whenever I see it.

and no, Kanuma has absolutely NO connection to Israel whatsoever.

And yes, I know that it's supposed to be a Satsuki Azalea flower, OK?

Blue skies

I'm tired of this rain, so here's a photo from last Sunday.

And it's a rocket, OK?

at the science park in Utsunomiya.

genki sushi

it's supposed to be "genki" so why their logo looks so angry?

To read more about conveyor belt sushi, visit my other blog.

hard off in the rain

This is a Watery Wednesday entry.

And yes, "Off House", "Book Off", "Hard Off" and "Garage Off" are real names in the "Off" chain. And for some reason foreigners seem to find the name "Hard Off" particularly amusing.

my daughter

Yes, I'm one of those annoying people who think their cats are their children.

ramen shop at apita

The quintessential Japanese meal set: ramen, curry rice, gyoza and a salad.

More about Japanese food here on my other blog.

xmas lights in Utsunomiya

that tower that everybody knows

Yeah, another Utsunomiya eyesore landmark.
This is a Skywatch Friday entry.

xmas lights have appeared

Parco is one of the most iconic department stores in Utsunomiya.

one of the lakes around Nikko

This is a Watery Wednesday entry.

Waiting

Shinto priests waiting to bow:

With black slippers and white robes, this photo was almost monochrome to begin with.

Want to see more "waiting" photos? Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.