Summer Festival / Rice Field Bug Catching

Sorry I didn't update the blog last week. There wasn't much opportunity for pictures. We had a quiet night at home last Friday.

I had a 24 hour Ekiden on Saturday. Basically, it is a 24 hour run. The hours are separated for each department. You pick a time to run and sign up. I wussed out and took the 10:00 AM on Saturday instead of the 11:00 PM Friday night or the 3:00 AM Saturday morning. We had many people in our time slot so we only had to run about a mile before we switched over. I think the intent is to see how many laps around the building your team can do in 24 hours. I am not sure who ended up winning. There are many different companies that are involved. After, there was free yaki-niku (grilled meat) so I was happy. Overall, I think it is more geared toward team building than anything else. Elin and the kids had to go to Savannah's school and clean all morning.

Two of the Padget girls stayed the over night at our place on Saturday. Emma is a year older than Savannah. Maddie is a little older than Emma, but she took to Denny so it worked out. We did some more fireworks that night. Unfortunately, the Padget family lives in Tokyo and Nathan lives here in Utsunomiya. The kids are too old to go to Japanese public school so they have to go to an international school in Tokyo.

On Sunday, Savannah and I went to Utsunomiya for the day for Daddy/Daughter time. We went book and pen shopping and also made a stop at the "Grab Happiness Diner". We got Burgers, fries and Shakes. It was expensive, but worth it.




Natsu Mitsuri (we think) - This weekend we had a festival at Denny's school. Friday was his last day of school for summer break (5 weeks). We decided to walk since there isn't a lot of parking at the school. This is us leaving the house.









Yes, it is rainy season. It is hot, humid and it rains just about every day. These are the clouds that greeted us as we arrived at the school.






Another picture of the cloud cover. We are told that the rainy season is over this weekend. Supposedly, they are pretty good at pinpointing the start and end so hopefully, we will see some better weather soon. I am told that rainy season gives way to hotter weather. It is hot enough already. We shower and then start sweating as soon as we dry off. It is so humid...

The kids got to play 4 games for 100 yen ($1). Basically, it was a no lose situation. this one had magnets on fishing poles. There were snacks with metal binder clips on them. The kids had to catch a snack.

This game had balls that you rolled into the animal boxes. The animals are the ones at the school.

All you had to do with this one is pull a string to see what snack you won. Savannah pulled what we think was a squid. Luckily, they were sympathetic and allowed her to choose again.

The clouds stayed right at the edge of the school property. The school is to the right in this picture where the clouds were. On the other side, it was clear skies. You can see the moon in this one if you look closely.

Most of the girls were dressed up in kimonos. We bought cheapies for Denny and Savannah. Some families go all out.

Rice Field - Bug Catching - We headed out to a different area to make scarecrows for our rice field. Unfortunately, we were not smarter than our Japanese navigation system so we never did find the place. We decided to drive to the rice field and wait for the rest of the people to show up for bug catching. Since we were early, we got one-on-four attention with the bugman.







Bugs started to get old pretty quick so I started trying for frogs. I had a really big one trapped in a clump of grass in the creek. I was trying to shake him into my net and this guy dropped in out of nowhere. He was huge.



Flowers that we saw next to the creek.






This was Denny's bug box We had dragonflies, grasshoppers and frogs.





Closeup of the daddy frog we caught.






More flowers that we saw.

Picture of the rice fields. In the back, I think there are grain silos. This is the landmark that we use to turn left to go to the field.

This is the size of the rice plants after about 3 months or so. They are big, but I can't see ant sign of the actual rice yet.

More pictures of the rice field.

Frog on a rock.

More pictures of rice fields. Japan rivals Ireland for green. Most areas that are farmland are this color.







More rice fields. In the back is a large white building. This is a Honda dormitory. The associates (usually the younger ones) can rent cheap dorm rooms to save money. I haven't been inside, but we have walked by as looked in the windows from the street. I think there is even a cafeteria inside.

I took the kids to Bell Mall today. We needed to stay out of the heat since we were in it all weekend. We got a little sunburn on Saturday, but not too bad. I added some videos below. Enjoy.




Fireworks at the end of the festival. The guys in the straw-lined stage seemed a little anxious when the fireworks were lit. I can't say I blame them.

Lightning that we had all night while we were at the festival.

Dancing at the end of the festival

Another video of the drums and flute player.

Drums / Flute player at the festival