Glazed frost, the crystal-clear trees covering the mountain. (U-hyou/雨氷)

At the end of January,  a rare phenomena had seen in Matsumoto city.
The phenomena is called glazed frost, "U-hyo/雨氷" in Japanese.

This phenomena is so rare that the people around me all said that they never see it before.



What is glazed frost, and how they occur?
I have searched about it a little.

Usually, the water will become ice when the temperature is under 0 degree.
But on certain conditions, the water's temperature can become under 0 degree without changing to ice.

When the molecule is really stable, water 's temperature can become under 0 degree.

What happen when those cold water fall from sky as a rain?
They sticks to the trees, and soon changes to ice.
If this continues, trees gets frosted.

This is the way how the glazed frost occurs.

On this day, I was driving a car from Matsumoto city to Suwa city, to the southern area of Nagano prefecture.

The weather was fine, but the color of mountain was white.
It becomes white with snow, but it was little different this day.

The color seemed a little gray, not real white.
As the frost is transparent, the color of trees and mountain can be seen through the ice.
This maybe made the color seemed like gray.

When climbing up the mountain pass, I saw a lot of frozen trees.
At this time, I realized that I'm watching an unusual something.

This place was an entrance to highland called "Takabocchi highland (高ボッチ高原)".

The entrance of Takabocchi higland.

The trees were reflecting sunlight, and seemed as if chandelier.
I'm not sure what kind of tree this is. I think it is tree of cherry blossom.
I will come back here again when spring comes and will confirm what this tree was.

On the way going back to Matsumoto city, I went to hot spring called  "Gake-no-yu Hotspring/崖の湯".

Going through the tunnel of trees and frozen roads, I have reached there.

As it was so slippery road, I was little scared driving.

At the hotel named "Yakushi-daira Akane jyuku (薬師平茜宿)", I heard that negative side of this phenomena. Thousands of trees downed by the weight of the ices stick on their branches.

Yakushi-daira Akane jyuku (薬師平茜宿)

I've saw a lots of trees bent to weird directions.
The fallen tree had cut electrical cables, some area lost electric power for few days.
A news told me that an hotel called "Myojin kan (明神館)" were trapped for few days.

News: The guests trapped by glazed frost walked to get down the mountain 

The scenery were so beautiful, but it was so cold taking picture there.

The ice cold scenery reminded me the movie "Frozen".

What I knew was that beauty of the nature is also close to danger hazard.

Thank you for reading!!
Have a nice weekend!!

The city in the snow (Matsumoto city/松本市)

The snow changed the city a little bit.
Ordinary things seemed little different.

This is the flog statue made by students of Shinsyu University (信州大学)
There are three flogs, two flogs are holding swords.

If you visit Matsumoto city, go to Nawate street (縄手通り).

Nawate street

You will see this statue.

Aｔ the middle of Nawate street, there are Yohashira shrine, that I have introduced in my blog few times.

The snow covered buildings, statues, and towers.

The pigeons were fine even it was so cold.

On the way to Matsumoto Castle, I saw cats.
I thought the cats don't like cold place, but they seemed doing fine.

At the a square of the castle, the children was playing with ice slider.

In the other place, idol singers were having a live concert.
The group's name is "Otome corporation (乙女コーポレーション)".

Any where in the city, people seemed having fun, enjoying a winter day.

Thank you for reading!
Have a good night!

The cute brothers met at Matsumoto Castle (Japanese Shiba inu / 柴犬)

At the day I went to Matsumoto castle, I met cute brothers.

They are Japanese dog breed called "Shiba inu (柴犬)".




The owner told me that they are real brothers.
Kid brother was friendly but little mischievous. The one in right side was kid brother.

Elder brother was little shy, and gentle boy.

Shiba is an ancient type of dog that their bones were found at archaeological site in Jomon Eera, about 15000 years ago. They were good buddy of human when hunting.

Their character are faithful only to owner, and keeps distance to the stranger.
This means that Shiba has good character as a guard dog.

Elder brother had more like Shiba's original character.
The kid brother was more friendly than elder brother.

Kid brother seemed want to play with his brother a lot.

The kid brother found me came near.

Came near, and licked me!!

Someday, if I can keep the dog, I want to chose Shiba.

Thank you for reading!
Good night!

Castle in the snow (Matsumoto castle)

In middle of January, heavy snow fall in all around Japan.
It was Monday morning, what I saw was white world.
Cars, houses, buildings, and roads, every thing were covered with snow.

In the weekend of this week, I went to Matsumoto castle to see it with snow.

However a week had passed since the snow fall, there were still lots of them were left.




That week was so cold, the temperature were around -5 degrees in Celsius, 25 degrees in Fahrenheit everyday.

Near the castle, the roads were frozen and so slippery.
I had to be really careful not to trip over.

Getting inside, there were a lot people came to see the castle.
They were all walking a little slowly not to slip.

The color red of the bridge seemed beautiful, shined in white world.

This bridge is under repair and people can't go over now.
I think it is repairing for years, and I have never use it yet.

A swan was swimming under it. It is so small, but you may can see him in the picture above.
He came near me swimming.

As it is so cold, his neck seemed a little thick than as usual.
The birds also have to keep heats in their body.

The castle from the other side.
As this day was a festival, people could get inside of the garden for free.
An entry fee costs 610 yen for an adult, and 300 yen for a child.

Getting inside, there were a lot of snow left.

The garden seemed so different from other season.
It was like this in autumn.

The castle in autumn.

The trees were covered with weed covers.

The covers protects trees from the insects. To protect themselves from cold, the insects digs holes in the tree. Those holes may kill trees, so those covers are needed.

The snow didn't fall so match since that day, but there are still some of them are left.
If they fall again, I will go out and take more pictures again.

Thank you for reading!
One more day to go for weekend!

Have a good night!