New Year's marathon relay race, the seasonal tradition in Japan winter. (Hakone Eki-den/箱根駅伝: Second day)

On the second day, I could see the top team of the race.

The top team was Aoyama Gakuin University.
This team started as a top, and kept the position through out the race.

Hakone ekiden have severe rules.

As I wrote yesterday, 21 teams can run the race every year.
The top ten teams can run next year's Hakone ekiden race without election race.
But the position become under 11, the team have to win the election race which held only two month before Hakone ekiden. As it is so difficult to keep the condition and motivation for two months, whole team wishes to keep the 10th position.

This is one of the severe rules.

The second severe rules is that if the team 10 minutes behind time from top team on outward, and 20 minutes on returning race, the runner who waits for sash have to start running without receiving it.

By this rule, we sometimes see the runner who were waiting for the team mate have to start running even though they can see him coming near. It is so ruthless scene.

The runners had done their best this year, as every year usual, it was really good race.

I have to wait a year again to see these young athletes running.

What I thought was that I have to work hard and be healthy to enjoy watching the race next year.

Thank you for reading!
Have a nice weekend!

箱根駅伝, 青山学院大学, 正月

New Year's marathon relay race, the seasonal tradition in Japan winter. (Hakone Eki-den/箱根駅伝: First day)

On January 2nd and 3rd, most famous marathon race is held in Japan.
This race is called Hakone Eki-den (箱根駅伝).

"Eki-den (駅伝)" means "marathon relay race" in Japanese.
The runners are the teams of university.

They are the top 21 running teams of Japanese university which won many marathon races in the past year. There are 10 runners in each team, and one runner runs about 20 kilometers each.

They starts running from Tokyo, hand-off sash, the baton made of cloth, and runs to top of Hakone mountain in first day. In second day, the runners starts from mountain top of Hakone, and comes back to Tokyo again. The distance of one way is about 110 kilometers, so they runs 220 kilometers in two days.



The first day, I took the pictures of runners who goes to Hakone mountain.

When the runners passes, one side of street will be completely blocked, so that no cars or
motorcycles can't get in. Only police and a car which coach of each team rides can run with them.

A lot of people are coming near to the street, and cheers the runners swinging the flags.

As the course is public road, there are a lot of up and down hills.
Some runners seems like flying when coming down the hill.

They are so fast that I couldn't take the photos in best pint...
In the second day, I took little more photos of runners. so I will post them later.

Thank you for reading!
Good night!

箱根駅伝, 城西大学, 神奈川大学, 東京国際大学, 上武大学, 法政大学, 正月

Happy new year with most beautiful mountain in Japan. (本栖湖/Lake Motosu, 中央道/Chu-ou dou highway, 厚木/Atsugi)

Japan has few days holiday in end and beginning of the year, I moved with a car running through a highway, Chu-ou dou highway(中央道).

This highway runs Yamanashi prefecture (山梨県), where Mt. Fuji (富士山) exists.
(Mt. Fuji is placed half  in Yamanashi prefecture, and half in Shizuoka prefecture.)

The time and places changes Mt. Fuji's beauty.
The first place I would like to show is lake Motosu.

There are 5 lakes near Mt. Fuji, and lake Motosu is one of them.
As it is warm winter in Japan this year, a little snow could see near the lake.

There were people who enjoys fishing, taking pictures, and camping.
Good nice nature still left here.

Click here to see map of lake Motosu.

Mt. Fuji could also see from the highway.
It appears suddenly.

When it comes to open place where no trees are not around the highway, you can see whole shape of Mt. Fuji.

Towards coming near closer, Mt. Fuji becomes larger.

I have to say one thing!
I was in passenger seat, not driving. In Japan, driver's seat is in right side, and cars run left side of the load.

The place I thought beautiful was Koufu Shouwa (甲府昭和) interchange.

Click here to see map of Koufu Shouwa interchange.

The last place I took picture was at a road in Atsugi city (厚木市), Kanagawa prefecture (神奈川県).

As Kanagawa prefecture is quite far from Mt. Fuji, it can be seen only when the weather is good and air is clear.

I was lucky this day, the condition was so good in the time of dawn.
This place was just a parking space of Seven Eleven.

Click here to see the map of see this parking lot.

I could see these all Mt. Fuji in same day, the first day of year 2016, it maybe lucky year.

I'm wishing that the world will become peace, and my family can pass the year healthy.

Thank you for reading!
Wishing everyone had started happy and nice year!!!

富士山, 本栖湖, 中央道, 甲府昭和, 厚木

Thousands of candle lights in the bamboo lamp (Azumino Kami Akari/安曇野神竹灯, Hodaka Shrine/穂高神社)

In the beginning of December, the festival called Kami Akari (神竹灯) held at Hodaka shrine (穂高神社) in Azumino city.

Kami akari means "Lights of god".

The candles are present from the god in far mountain, Sobo yama mountain in Takeda city, Oita prefecture. The god's name is Toyotama hime (豊玉姫).

Oita prefecture is in Kyushu island, the south island in Japan.





This festival had started five years ago, and there are 8,000 lamps in the shrine this year.
As I wrote in past article in my blog, the people have relationships with Kyushu island.
The ancestor came from Kyushu island.

Kamikouchi （上高地）, the beautiful mountain field guarded by ancient ocean god (Boat festival held at Myoujin pond / 明神池, Hodaka temple / 穂高神社)

Not only watching the lights, people were praying at main shrine.
I did, too!

In closer look, the lamps were like this.

There was small sized shrine here.

The picture and texts are carved to bamboo.

As the lights were not electric, so I thought they are soft and gentle.

As it was so beautiful, I felt like hard to leave the place.

It's getting cold in this few days in Japan.
Please take care not to catch a cold.

Thank you for reading!
Have a nice weekend!

穂高神社, 安曇野, 神竹灯

Do you know wasabi and how they grown? (Daiou Wasabi-en / 大王わさび園)

When eating Japanese food, you may be see green paste added to plates.
They are called "Wasabi (わさび/山葵)".

Wasabi, Japanese horseradish needs a lot of clean water.
There are many wasabi farms in Japan, and there are 3 famous places.
Hikimi in Shimane prefecture, Utogi in Shizuoka prefecture, and Azumino in Nagano prefecture.

I went to Azumino, Daiou Wasabi-en (大王わさび園).
Azumino is a largest wasabi producing place in Japan.

As wasabi is pastel green color when eating, but it is root vegetable.
It looks like this after harvested.

After peeling coats, grate them and it becomes commonly seen wasabi.

This day was cloudy cold day, but can see inside of the farm.
Clean water streams could seen every where in this farm.

Stream are all spring water from Japan Alps.
120,000 tons of water springs water goes through this farm everyday.
This volume of water is same as 230000 people's using a day!!

The leaves of wasabi.

As this place was also famous for ancient king.
He was said so huge and strong.
There were small shrine and sandal for him.

As he was too strong, central king of Japan in that age have on him, and sent large forces to this land. The king of Azumino fought bravery, but got killed at last.

People lives here still remember and enshrines him.

The caves were here and could get inside.

Inside of the cave was like this.

Small shrine was on large rocks.

This day may be the last which I could see red leaves of this year.

The baby wasabis.

There were statue of wasabi.
The ice cream which this boy eating is wasabi flavor.

In the souvenir shop, you also can buy several size of wasabis.

You also can buy grater here, too.

This graters were made of shark's skin.

How about buying them for souvenir?

Thank you for reading!
Have a nice weekend!

わさび, 山葵, ワサビ, 大王わさび園, 安曇野,