Autumn Days

Autumn is my favourite season. I know some people find the shorter days and cooler weather depressing, but after all that heat and humidity I welcome the end of summer here. Mind you it's not only because of that, because I've always loved autumn, even before coming to Japan.

Right now the weather is just right for me. Clear, sunny days with temperatures in the low to mid 20s, with somewhat cooler nights. Even now in mid-October, there are still times when I'm too hot really. It amuses me when people here are surprised to see me still wearing short-sleeves, in October! They don't base their comments on the actual weather at the time, but purely on the calendar. As in, 'Aren't you cold? It's October!', even if it's 27 degrees... Schools change to winter uniforms at the beginning of October and around town people suddenly start wearing boots and scarves. The other day a woman I know told me she had just changed her cushions from summer ones to winter ones...

Anyway, for me autumn means Hallowe'en, my birthday, Guy Fawkes night... That last one passes me by now unfortunately, but Hallowe'en has been growing in popularity more and more ever since I first came to Japan. I love fancy dress, and the annual foreigner-run Hallowe'en party here is one of the highlights of the local social scene.

at the local shopping centre

our 100yen shop decorations

More typically in Japan, autumn means sports days, culture festivals (November 3rd is Culture Day, a national holiday), autumn foliage and food. There's a saying, shoku-yoku no aki, which literally means 'appetite autumn', pointing out that lots of tasty things are in season now.

If you're a small child, it seems that autumn also involves digging up sweet potatoes. Every kindergarten or primary school around either grows their own or organises a little field trip to harvest some. K (and the rest of us) went up to Daisen with his pre-school last week to dig sweet potatoes (and collect chestnuts), and he also helped H's mum harvest some the other day too. Luckily they make perfect baby food for T, boiled and mashed...

Tottori Burger Festival

I love autumn in Japan. The days are sunny and warm (well, unless you're planning a barbecue...), the evenings are pleasantly chilly and there are a total of 5 public holidays in September, October and November.

Monday was one of those holidays - Sports Day, but we did nothing even vaguely sporty. Instead we headed to Mount Daisen for the 2nd Tottori Burger Festival. We did intend to go last year, but that didn't quite work out. Anyway, this year's festival was bigger and better, with 60 different burgers on offer, spread over 3 different sites. About a third of the burgers available were from restaurants based here in Tottori prefecture, and the rest were from all over Japan. As well as all the types of burgers you might think of (beef, pork, chicken, fish), there were also a lot you probably wouldn't think of: venison, ostrich, deep-fried octopus croquettes...

We went to two of the three sites. The first one didn't have such a great choice of burgers, but it did have our prefectual mascot, Tori-Pi...



Tori-Pi is a cross between a bird (tori in Japanese) and a pear. That's why he is green and round and has a black stalk sticking out of his head. Obvious, right? 'Bird' is in the name of the prefecture, Tottori, and the area is famous for its pears. So that all makes sense now. Every place and every event in Japan seems to be required to have some odd mascot. Do you remember these bizarre characters (scroll to the bottom of the post)?

The second site we visited was much better; better burgers, more people and it wasn't located in a car-park.

Most people seemed to be in the 2 hour queue for Kobe beef burgers, so there wasn't long to wait for any of the others. In the end, I had a chicken burger, a pork burger and a really good American-style beef burger. H just had a pork tendon burger (?) and a beef burger; I think he was still recovering from excessive curry consumption the previous day. And K? He had that octopus thing...

Tottori Flower Park

Last Sunday we went for a little day out to the Tottori Flower Park, which means that I can now bore you with endless pictures of K and of flowers. I will try to be restrained...

The park was the largest flower park in Japan when it opened 11 years ago. It covers about 50 hectares, equivalent to about 11 Tokyo Domes - large areas in Japan always seem to be measured in Tokyo Domes! At the centre of the park is a heated dome housing tropical plants...

... and around the main area runs a covered walkway, about a kilometre in length. The walkway is level but the park is not, so that sometimes you are at ground-level and other times you are in the tree-tops.

We took a picnic lunch and ate it at the top of the Flower Hill, with lovely views of Mount Daisen, now completely free of snow. The Flower Hill is replanted throughout the year so that it is always full of one particular flower in bloom, and at the moment it is a mass of poppies...

Until K was born I'd only been to the Flower Park a couple of times, but in the last 2 years I think we've been four times. It's not far from home, not expensive and is not usually very busy; it has lots of space for little ones to run around safely and nice areas to picnic on, oh, and there are lots of lovely flowers!

Our timing wasn't great on this visit though. Saturday marked the start of their Rose Festival but, due to a colder than usual season, there weren't many roses in flower yet. The previous big attraction, the tulips, had pretty much finished so overall there were not as many flowers as I'd hoped.

There were lots of flowers in the dome though, and in the Floating Garden. The spaces between the walkways and flower beds are filled with water, with lots of big koi swimming around...

K's favourite part was probably watching the Flower Trains - actually little tractors disguised as locomotives pulling carriages for tours of the park. There are two running around the park all day, so every half hour or so K would announce 'Choo choo!'...

Outside of the ticket gates, on the way back to the car park, there is a shop selling local produce where H spotted rhubarb! I've never seen it in the supermarkets here and a lot of Japanese people seem to have never even heard of it. I snapped some up and made a crumble on Sunday night. H wasn't too keen but I wasn't offended - all the more for me :-)

Out and about

Normal autumn weather has returned and we headed up to Mount Daisen on Saturday. There was still some of that early, unseasonal snow on the very top of the mountain and by the sides of the roads, but the day was very warm and sunny with temperatures in the mid-20s.

I'd seen a flyer for an interesting-looking 'Burger Festival' being held that day on Daisen, so we went to check it out. The flyer promised lots of unusual and tasty-looking burgers to sample, all created by popular local restaurants. However, when we got there at 11.30 there was already nowhere to park and long queues snaking away from the most popular stands. As we waited in traffic we heard announcements that several of the most tasty-looking burgers had sold out. So without even getting out of the car we turned around and went to a restaurant attached to a micro-brewery for lunch instead. I had a lovely mushroom and shrimp risotto and a delicious glass of their own pale ale, so I really don't think I missed out on anything :-)

After lunch we continued our drive through the mountains. The photo above shows a tree heavy with persimmons in the foreground, and persimmons hanging from above a window to dry, both common sights at this time of year.

We headed to H's grandparents' house but there was no-one home so we went to a nearby park to run around for a while (cue obligatory cute shot of K).

(And another one just for good measure)

Back home again I headed out in the evening to celebrate Heidi's birthday at Gul's new restaurant (where Fran Fran used to be, for those who know), with a big buffet of lovely Pakistani food and even some left-overs to bring home for H ;-), followed by a bit of karaoke of course.

Sunday was just as busy for me - in the morning we made a quick appearance at the local community centre's 'festival', a bit like a parish show in the UK. I have just started an English class there and I am of course a very visible member of the community so I knew it would be noticed, and noted, if I didn't go! I spent an hour wandering around the flower arrangements, matched sweet potatoes and various handicrafts, bought some cheap stuff I didn't need from the bazaar and ate some festival food. After that it was time to go again, as I was working all afternoon in Matsue (helping at a children's English party/presentation).

And last night, after K finally went to sleep, I lay on the sofa and watched TV....

Winter already?

Autumn around here is lovely. I've been meaning to take some pictures and write about the beautiful autumn leaves, warm, sunny days and crisp fresh air - but somehow I haven't quite got around to it. Then, as soon as we hit November - wintery! Sunday and Monday were horrible dark, rainy, windy days and we needed to put the heating on. Yesterday was still cold, but it was at least sunny and bright. And look what I spotted! The first snow on nearby Mount Daisen. I'm sure it's much earlier than usual. Daisen is the biggest mountain in Western Japan and has a lovely mountain-drawn-by-a-small-child look. It's about the same height as Ben Nevis (around 18oo metres?) but much easier to climb because you can drive about half way up.



Actually though, I've never climbed it, despite living here for years.Don't tell anyone...