Rice field prep, Koi no bori, Mountain temple.

This week at the school there was an open day where we could go in and see how the children are doing. Both are still doing very well and both had the opportunity to speak in front of the class. Liam actually volunteered to go two times because we were still in Colleen's class when he went the first time. Since I have previously shown Colleen speaking I have attached Liam's this time.

Last year we worked at the Takanezawa community rice field. This year we decided since we missed a few of the activities last year we should participate again. Today was the first meeting and it was to prep the field to be filled with water.

Currently the field is dry, but freshly tilled.

The prep work consisted of weeding and cleaning the gutters that will feed water to the field.

Everyone chipped in to help. This is Colleen working the shovel and me cutting weeds and bamboo.

Liam hauled many loads of the debris to the fire for burning.

During the winter the water channels are empty and dry. About 1.5 to 2 weeks ago I started to see water in the channels as I rode to work, and about 1 week ago some of the fields started filling with water. There are plates at the sides of the fields that slide open to allow water from the main channels to fill the fields. We also had to clear out the channel in front of our field.

The green house near our field was filled with the rice starts. Everyone was given the opportunity to take a flat home to care for prior to planting. Unfortunately we will be going on vacation over golden week and the rice requires water every day. As a result we opted not to take one home. We figured it would look bad if we showed up on planting day with a brown dead flat of rice..

Our community rice field is already behind many of the local farms. As we drive around we can see that many have already been filled and some have already been planted. This gentleman is using a hand tractor to smooth the field. Many larger fields now use special tractors that are ridden.

Some of the fields go right up against the homes. When these people go to bed I bet the sound of the frogs is amazing. I have already started to hear some of them in the evening on my way home and the children found a few today during our field prep.

Kate took this film about half a mile from our home. Takanezawa has many rice fields all around and you can see that many are already flooded with water.

Today I took Kate to the mountain the children and I went to about 3 weeks ago. I have since ridden back on my bicycle for training, but Kate had not yet been.

The view from the top is amazing and this image shows how the rice fields dot the country side.

We enjoyed visiting the temple at the top. I have to do a little research to determine the age of the temple. I believe this sign shows it on the left hand side, but I am not familiar with all the Kanji. I think maybe the 10th year of the Showa period (1936)

Some of the carvings on the grounds are very elaborate.

Kate and the children stopped for a picture on the steps leading to and from the temple. We parked closer this time but there were still quite a few steps to climb to get to the top. It was a little hazy today but we found a sign at the top that said you can see Mt Fuji from this spot. We will have to go back on a clear day and check it out.

As we drove around exploring today we could see tons of the koi no bori. They are especially prominent in the farming communities. Many of the old farm houses have huge koi on display. It is nice to see them dotting the country side this time of year. Come May 6th they will all be gone as May 5th is boys day. The pictures below are just a few of the ones we saw while we were out today.

That is all for this post, have a good week..

More cherry blossoms, Koi Nobori, and another new Kit Kat.

This week Kate and the children went with the Shionome sans to a private garden with a more than 200 year old weeping cherry tree in it. The tree was incredibly big and beautiful. The beginning of spring had some warm days, but recently it has been really cold, in fact it snowed again Friday night. The soil here is very dark and so about 10 in the morning the next day as we drove past some of the farms there was so much steam coming off of them from the sun heating the soil that it looked like there were a bunch of smoke makers lining the fields. I am ready for some warm weather... Anyway as a result of the cold the cherry blossoms are lasting longer than usual and there are still many in bloom.

Here you can see a picture of the tree and the children are in the photo. The give a bit of a size reference for the tree.

There was also a garden filled with a variety of plants and trees. The children played in the bamboo for a while. It looks like a forest, but more dense.

One of the children found this heart shaped bamboo stump. Colleen was really excited about it and told me first thing when I got home that evening.

Later in the week we visited another 200+ old cherry tree at a temple in Utsunomiya. I personally got to see this one and it was huge as well.

This picture shows the size of the trunk on this tree. It is amazing to think it has been in this spot for over 200 years.

At the temple was an interesting mix of old and new culture. This is a statue near the cherry tree with children climbing on a monk (maybe?). He is flanked on each side by miniature stone Pikachus. It's first time I have seen a stone Pokemon at a temple.

Also at the fountain was an interesting copper dragon water spout. I have really grown to like these, they can be found at many of the temple wash bins.

Kate also went to a park full of Sakura trees in the mountains with June san.

Looks like a good portion of the hill side is covered with the cherry trees.

After viewing the trees Kate and June went to a nice restaurant for lunch.

Now in Japan the Koi Nobori are flying all over the country side. This is in preparation for boys day (May 5th) I will have to make a point to get pictures of some of them around Tochigi. I really enjoy seeing them. I was originally planning to buy some before we returned home, but we have not found the really big ones anywhere. Even if we did I am sure they are very expensive.

This week while at the supa (super market) we stumbled on a new Kit Kat. The flavor is Kinako Ohagi. Kinako Ohagi is a Japanese sweet made with rice and a sweet bean coated with soybean powder. It tasted very much like a regular Kit Kat but strangely with a slight coffee after taste.

That's all for this post, have a great week.

Motegi Bicycle Race, Cherry Blossom Festival..

This weekend was the Motegi Cycle Mode Eco Classic bicycle race. At work a few of us talked about doing the race for fun months ago. The original plan was to race with 4 members in the 7 hour endurance event. In the end one member was not able to participate and so we registered a 3 man team. The members were myself, Maeshima san, and Hakamata san. We decided to do 2 rotations each and so we each had to ride 1:10 two times. We all agreed that we would compete with the main goal of having fun, not to win. My training so far this year has mainly consisted of riding to and from work, Hakamata san's training has been pretty much the same, and Maeshima san has mainly been playing Hockey to stay in shape.

The course was interesting and incorporated both the road course and the high speed oval. The map below is from my GPS data overlaid onto a satellite image of the course from google maps. We started in front of the pits and followed the road course. Where the road course passes the super speedway we did a U-turn and then followed the oval back in front of the pits for another U-turn and started the course over again. For rider changes at the U-turn we took the outside lane and then road into the pits. Our team had pit #14.

Before the race we were allowed to ride the coarse for 1 hour to warm up and become familiar with the route. While doing the warm up we stopped for some photos on the main oval.

I don't know the total number of participants as there were multiple events throughout the day. In the 7 hour endurance event there were 160 teams we directly competed against, 37 open teams, and 104 individuals but there were other events taking place and so the entire place was overrun with cyclist. At 8:40 there was a riders meeting. Slightly before we saw some cyclist start to move to the end of the pit and so we decided to follow. Our team met during the week and decided that I would start, Maeshima san would go second, and Hakamata san would be our anchor man. Originally I did not plan to line up at the front as our main goal was for fun. It kind of accidentally happened. When we went to the place for the riders meeting that also essentially set the starting position as well.

The start was basically a rolling start with a pace car to hold the pace initially. When the pace car pulled off the race was on. The race organizers invited professional riders from the Bridgestone Anchor pro team and Blitzen pro team to ride along in the event. They were not competing against us, but they really pushed the pace. It was interesting to ride with them and watch them. They were very smooth riders. In the picture below we are on the back stretch of the super speedway. The first two riders are pros from the Bridgestone Anchor team, the forth rider is a pro rider from the Utsunomiya Blitzen team, and the 6th rider in the black and white jersey is me.

Here I am in 5th position. Due to the rotation of the pack I had the opportunity to lead the race on at least 5 occasions. Before the race we joked that I was supposed to fall in with the lead group and hang with them. We were just joking when we said that (I think). I really didn't think I could pull it off.

Unfortunately the battery in my heart rate monitor gave up on me and so I didn't wear it during the race. Maybe it is better not knowing anyway. My first turn out I did 8 laps with an average speed of 26.3 mph (42.3 kph). We had hand signals to show the number of laps remaining before pit. Maeshima san tricked me, I know I saw 3 fingers for two laps in a row.

Since our race was a team event we wore an ankle band that had a chip in it. The chip recorded our times and when we pitted as well. There was only one band and so at the time of pitting we had to switch the band from one rider to the next. The picture below is of Maeshima san (black jersey with his thumb up) and Hakamata san (blue jacket) preparing for our first rider change.

The rider change went pretty smoothly and Maeshima san was off. Due to the time it takes to pit and get back on course it is not possible to regain the front pack. Actually not long after I pitted, the remaining riders from the other teams did as well and that group split up. As a result Maeshima san and Hakamata san had the very difficult task of maintaining pace without the help of a pack. Riding in a group of cyclist can save as much as 30% over riding solo. Here Maeshima san rounds the U-turn in front of the pits.

Doing his best heading in to the climbing section.

Hakamata san also had to spend most of his time riding solo. I suggested before his turn to get in with a group of other fast riders if possible. Unfortunately it was not easy to find a group of other fast riders as I also found out on my second turn. We were in no mans land and there weren't other groups forming. It was more efficient to ride with others, but everyone we came upon were riding slower. We had to opt to ride around them if we wanted to keep moving. Riding solo took its toll on all of us. My second time out I was only able to do 6 laps at 22.2 mph (35.7 kph). The last lap I ran I was completely out of energy. The wind and exertion took its toll and I really welcomed the rider change. The picture below is of Hakamata san cranking around one of the road course corners.

Hakamata san was our anchor man and so he was also burdened with finishing as strong as possible. He was able to hold up very well. Below is from when he crossed the finish line.

It was definitely an interesting event. There were many other races on course during the day at the same time as us. There was a huge variation of riders. There were fast riders, slow riders, regular bikes, min-velos, and mamacheri's as well as various other bikes. There was also a hand bike race. I can't imaging running this course by arm power alone, but there were a number of competitors on course and moving pretty fast as well. I give them a lot of credit for getting out and taking on this course.

The Shionome sans came with Kate and the children to watch the race. At Motegi there are a number of other activities to do and so they took the opportunity to enjoy them as the entire race was 7 hours long.

Here Liam is trying one of the car rides. This one beeps when you hit the wall with the car.

So finally how did we do? I think we were all surprised at the result. We ended up placing 6th out of 160 teams competing directly with us, and 9th out of all the 104 individuals, 160 teams, and 37 open teams. Our average speed was 23.2 mph (37.3 kph). We were all happy with the result and our entire team can say "Ganbarimashita" (We did our best). If you double click the image below you can see the first 28 teams result and we were the 6th place 3S1 racing team.

On Sunday we were able to go to Hanami (cherry blossom festival). Our first stop was at the park close to my work. The road in front of work is lined both sides with cherry trees and the view is quite spectacular at this time of year.

The park was packed so we actually parked at work and walked to the park.

As I said in last years post, Hanami is more than just going and sitting around a bunch of blooming trees. It is an opportunity to celebrate making it through another winter, a time for families and friends to get out and socialize and just enjoy the nice weather.

The parks are lined with festive lanterns that are lit when the sun goes down.

This is what they look like in full bloom. Much better than last weeks picture..

We celebrated at two different parks this year. As we drove to the next we passed a beautiful row of cherry trees along a small waterway. We parked the car along with others that were having a quiet picnic and took some pictures.

The second park we stopped at is a larger park in Utsunomiya. Another common site at Hanami are vendors of all sorts. For both lunch and dinner we ate from the vendors that lined the parks.

This is Utsunomiya tower. It is possible to pay to go up it for sight seeing, but the children said they have been up in Tokyo tower and so they are OK without trying it.

The park is a great place to relax, this is a coy pond lined with cherry trees.

Liam and Colleen at the playground having fun.

Here are the lanterns lit up. They really add to the atmosphere as the sun goes down. We would have stayed longer, but it still gets cold at night. Shortly after the lights came on we decided we were too cold and called it a day. It was a very busy weekend, but enjoyable.

Have a good week.