Fall in Japan

Along with our colleagues, Don and Carol Love, and courtesy of our good friend and her certificates for a complimentary stay at a local hotel, we headed off to the mountains northwest of Tokyo for an overnight retreat. Here's the view from our window just after sunrise.

Chichibu is a city dominated by the spiral slice carving of mountains (like a honey baked ham) to produce limestone to make cement.

It's also a place of vivid fall colours. Since the frost is not as sudden in Japan, the colours tend to be muted, but the Japanese maples known as "momiji" in a park by the river are fiery red, and a "Light Up" program at that park brought busload after busload of mostly retirees, who whip out their cell phones to take shots of the foliage.

Down by the river, there is a fleet of old style boats where two men dressed in traditional garb will pole and paddle groups of people down the river. The oldest forms of this boat were planks fastened together with strips of brass like fabric sown together. The current boats are planks fastened together and then coated on the outside with a thin layer of fibreglass.

We didn't go down the river on the boats, but did enjoy a lunch on an island in the middle of the river, and climbing one of the mountains.

We also ran into our American colleagues, the Kindervaters, who were up there for a night, so that was a pleasant surprise.

A good time away for us all. Now, we head into the Christmas season and all of its busyness and opportunities.