Back to my February 11th walk

 These two garages looked more like igloos. They were a bit strange because there were no houses near them. I finally decided that they must be for farm equipment since they were in the middle of what seemed to be farmland.

 The purpose of this house was also unclear. It appeared to have a single parking space on the ground floor and one or two small rooms on the second floor. It did not look like a place where people would be living. Also the large number of ladders on the wall was perplexing. Again I finally decided that it was connected to the farm land on this side of the road.

 When I finally reached some houses, I found another ladder. Someone had been shoveling snow off the roof. The TV news has reported that because there has been three times the average amount of snow many buildings have collapsed.

 This is a pyramid of boards that are protecting a large plant from the snow.

 I came to the end of the road, where it joined another in a T-intersection. The mountains in the distance were very pretty.

 Although there had been no sign of it during my walk, there is a drainage ditch that runs along the side of the road. This little section is the only place where it is not buried under the snow.

 I turned and started back toward the university and noticed that a snow storm was coming. It had already covered the mountains which I would have been able to see as I walked back.

Although it was not snowing on me, the sun was gradually fading as the storm approached.

Snow Festival

 The things in the center, the things on the sticks, are whole fish that are being grilled. People buy them and then eat them like they were a lollipop or a Popsicle.

 This woman is making takoyaki. The first part tako means octopus and the second part yaki means fried or broiled and sometimes baked. Takoyaki are little balls of batter that are fried in a pan with hemispherical cooking chambers, maybe three centimeters in diameter. As the batter solidifies, a piece of octopus is placed in the middle. In the picture the woman has already added the octopus and is putting more batter on top.

 Here the woman is separating the pieces and turning them over with chopsticks. The extra batter around the outside of the individual cooking indentations gives enough extra volume that the finished product is a small sphere. Once they are cooked, six of the little balls are placed in an open-topped container and they are covered with a soy based sauce, pieces of ginger, and seaweed. As those of you who know me will know, I will not touch them. In the picture you can see the pieces of octopus in a plastic container behind the spray bottle which contains oil tht is sprayed on the pans to keep the takoyaki from sticking.

 We decided that it was time to leave. The crowd had grown considerable and it was time to my friend Tony who had kindly volunteered to pick us up and take us shopping before driving us back to the campus.

 As we returned to the main road, I discovered two statues standing in the snow.

 When we neared the train stations, we found that someone had made a snow sculpture on the sidewalk. I got home around 9:30 happy, tired, well provisioned, and ready for bed.

The next morning I got up and found that we had had another blizzard. I guess this one was in honor of the Snow Festival.

Snow Festival

 This man was selling corn on the cob that had been boiled and then browned over a charcoal fire. I bought an ear for 300 yen and it was delicious. Notice the hand being warmed over the coals. It was very cold.

 This was for the children. They paid 500 yen and were given a small scoop. They could then use it to dip into to tank of water which was filled with small toys. They could keep as many as they were able to get out in a single try.

 A bridge carrying a main road passed over the middle of the Festival site. They had strung blue lights on the underside of the bridge, and it was quite pretty and created a nice atmosphere for the SNOW festival.

 This booth was sell charcoal grilled steaks. Again a lot of people were standing around trying to keep warm.

 This stall was selling chocolate covered bananas with nuts on the outside.

 This was one of the stalls that was giving away sake. The kanji reads hakkaisan, meaning the eight sea mountain. I drank some and it was pretty tasty.

At the opposite end of the site from where we entered, there was a large screen about a stage. A steady stream of performers were entertaining the crowd. I walked in that direction but stopped well before because the music was so loud.

Snow Festival

 This is a friend of Chris' who was inside the Kamakura with his family.

 The entrance to the Kamaura was very low but you could get through without crawling.

 We went outside again and saw a group of people around a large green object.

 When we got closer, we realized that it was a person in a costume of a cartoon character. All the kids were having their pictures taken with it.

 There were tents along both sides of the festival area. Some of them had Japanese lanterns. In the past these would have had candles inside but now there are light bulbs.

 This group of people were waiting for the food in the stall to finish cooking.

 We were early so there was not much of a crowd yet, but it was growing rapidly. Also most the the people were at the other end of the area watching someone sing.

This is a typical stall. The employees, probably family members, are cooking on gas stoves. Customers walk up, buy something, and carry it away to eat while they are walking around.