Daley-sensei's Adventures in Himeji, Japan.

It was a cold, wet, rainy day, but that didn't stop everyone from coming out and enjoying the Nada Kenka Matsuri this year. I was only able to really enjoy the first day, but here's some neat photos from the event. I had a pretty good vantage point and was mostly sheltered from the rain, so I was able to relax and watch without getting trampled in the massive crowds.  Some mini shrines would precede the larger portable shrines ( yatai) , and they'd move very, very quickly.  It takes a lot of men to lift these shrines, particularly with four drummers sitting on the inside (and the drum itself weighs quite a bit!).  The yatai  were all too large to actually enter the gate into the main temple complex. So, ladders would be brought out and the top screwed off to safely drag the yatai  through the gate.  Seven different neighborhoods "compete" during the Fighting Festival, and each neighborhood is represented by a different color.  Younger boy

Nagoyama's still one of my favorite places to go, and luckily for me I can now see it every day from my classroom while teaching! So I knew when the leaves were just right , and made sure to pop over with my camera on a clear day--this autumn was unusually short, cold, and rainy, so there weren't many such days this year! It was very relaxing to walk my favorite path through the mountain area.  At first, there seemed to be a lot less cats than I remembered from previous visits. But fortunately, they started appearing once I worked my way through a bit. Most of the cats were quite feral, but fortunately outside the main pavilion the friendly cat colony was still there. Most of the cats I saw had tipped ears, so it seems like modern cat colony population management techniques are finally making their way over to Japan (except around the castle. I've counted at least eight separate litters of kittens around the castle since I've arrived!). It was great to play with th

Whew! I've been so busy the past two months I haven't had any time at all to upload my photos! ごめんなさい！！I'll do my best to catch up on things this week. All the photos are processed and ready to go, I just have to sit and be patient with the still-abysmally-slow upload times.  Anyways, the Koko-en in Himeji is still as lovely as ever! I made a couple trips there over the last two months, and here's a roundup of the best of the photos. The trick to the Koko-en, as ever, is to get there right when it opens so as to avoid the worst of the crowds. Otherwise, patience is required to wait until an area clears up of tourists just long enough to snap a scenic photo.  The main building over the main pond. It's actually quite photogenic at the right angle! I have no idea what kind of fruit this is. It was growing on a tree and it looks pretty, at the least! Sometimes the paths can be quite dense in some of the sub-gardens, and I always enjoy this part becau