We just got back from a long weekend at
Adatara Forest Park in Fukushima Prefecture. Friday 20th March was a Japanese national holiday to to mark the spring equinox. Although the days will get longer, I really fail to notice when living in Tokyo.
We left at a Kane-friendly time of 9am on Friday morning and arrived at Adatara in the early afternoon. To be honest, there is very little to say about our visit there. It was lovely to escape the concrete of Tokyo and also visit a new place. I visited the onsen a couple of times and also had a sauna which was quite revitalising.
The evenings were spent eating, drinking and chatting. As you will see from the photo, the lodge that we stayed in had a wood burning stove. I appointed myself chief fire officer and busied myself lighting, fueling, and cleaning the fire. The main drawback of the fire was having to pay an extortionate amount of money for wood to fuel the stove. Not only was the wood extortionate, but the standard bundle would only be enough to burn for 3 or 4 hours. Feeling slightly cheated, I resorted to scouring the surrounding forest for free of charge firewood. Not only was this wood free, but it also burned strongly.
And now only a few hours of the long weekend are left. I will again have to pack my bag and think about work again on Monday. Work has been quite nice over the last 2 weeks or so. I have been leaving around 6pm every day and managing to enjoy myself one way or another. I'll try and go to the gym a couple of times next week and am thinking about watching the new Tom Cruise film (Valkyrie) which has just been released in Japan.
The President of Weathernews has recently been nominated for some international award. As a result of this, he wanted to have a picture with the non-Japanese staff at Weathernews. Quite a motley crew! Staff in the photo are from a number of countries - Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, USA, Germany, Scotland, Korea, China, Poland, England, Italy, and Indonesia.
