Kanogawa

It was so beautiful day today. I liked it so much except hay fever...
I felt I should go out anyway.





I decided to try Kanogawa main stream today. It was looked good condition!


Contrary to my expectation, the river was silent, even there were good hatches(cranefly, mayfly).

So I gave there up and went to M-River as a branch of Kanogawa river.



It was good excersize for me.




I got several baby Amago trout. They are so tiny but pretty one.
I would like to see you again when you became groundfather.

Oshino; first fishing trip '08

Since I would spend this weekend alone, I planed to go fishing as first trip of this year.

The destination was Oshino! Needless to say, I was one of most famous spring creek in Japan.

My friend Curryman also had a time today, so we met there and did it together.


I got a first luck soon. This char (Iwana) refused CDC dun first. So I picked adult midge #20 pattern as next one. Then he sipped it.

Always first one gave me a pleasure, especially as it of this year!
Good start, Lance.

I had one more luck there, first hole. It was rainbow.



After that, I took pain with their smartness. Fish there were very clever. Even I had strike, it was very difficult to set a hook with them...

Curryman was doing better than me. I need to be get used to Oshino's speciality.

Totally it was good trip to me. I think I liked this place and come again soon.

Vernal Equinox Day; Kanogawa Preinspection

Unfortunately we had a little rain on Vernal Equinox Day, but my daughter would like to go outside. So we went out and headed for Kanogawa.

It was colored by the rain.

She was absorbed in playing her virtual fishing pole.

I was absorbed in finding mayflies!

It was first time to see the one having such a dark wing.







This seemed to be famous and key one, Crane fly 'Gaganbo'. I need to try tying this pattern to enjoy Kanogawa fly fishing this spring.

Look these mayflies on the surface, what a healthy river it is!
I realized this river's high potential anyway.

Find and enjoy snow

Her strong request made me take a drive to find snow that she would play with.

Fortunately it was so fine day, we left home after breakfast.

Numazu city which we live in is one of the warmest place in Japan. But about 30minites drive can take us high elevation, the skirts of Mt. Fuji.

Although the snow itself was a kind of hard because it was not fresh one, we were satisfied with it so much.

The buds always tell us the joy of coming spring. Which means I should prepare for the general fishing season's opening also.

MARABOU

It was my first time to get this famous material 'Marabou'. I was going to buy white one only, but my daughter strongly recommended the magenta one also to me. I believed it should give me a luck.

Maybe the time is coming soon, which I resume tying after long long interval. I hope so.

JIGSOW

This puzzle'd been kept unopened for long time. It was presented by my predecessor in Boise before he left.

My daughter gave me a chance to open and try it. We worked on it together for a while though, she lost interest in it soon...



I continued to do it little by little a day, and finished it after two weeks.I felt this puzzle was well designed. It expressed Boise's destinctive feature so well.

The problem was there was no space to display it in our house now...

MACAO S.A.R.

Since we had to work yesterday, today Sunday was only off for us.

Our plan was to visit Macao, which was located next to Zhuhai. We used the ferry to Macao. We could see the Macao's building over the inland sea as right pic.









The color of that sea was just muddy. We got to Macao land soon.

City Center was likely busy for preparation of the lunar new year.
This is the Year of the Rat in Chinese astrology.









I didn't know that the Historic Centre of Macao was one of the World Heritage.

This was the Facade of St Paul's Cathedral. It seemed that the rest was destroyed, accidentally, by fire.










According to the Macao guide site;

' On a hill and accessible by an escalator just east of the ruins of the Church of St Paul, Monte Fort was built by the Jesuits between 1617 and 1626 as part of the College of the Mother of God. Barracks and storehouses were designed to allow the fort to survive a two-year siege, but the cannons were fired only once: during the aborted attempt by the Dutch to invade Macau in 1622' .

Talking of 1622, it was that Hidetada was 2nd shogun of Tokugawa shogunate in Japan. I would like to know histrical background also at sightseeing.

Zhuhai(珠海); food

This time, let me introduce some of foods I tasted in Zhuhai.

1. Local dining of our company(Zhuhai Factory)

I used it for breakfast and lunch everyday. There were several menu for each and it varied a little bit everyday. I had to pay attention not to eat too much because of its volume!



One of Morning Menu








One of Lunch Menu

2. Dinner; We had a bunch of options!

Beijing Duck; One called it not Beijing Duck but Zhuhai Duck.

Si Chuan cuisine(四川料理); It was definitely hot though, I counldn't stop eating...

おこげのあんかけ; I couldn't translate it into English, forgive me.








Shanghai cuisine(上海料理); It was a kind of popular cuisine in China for Japanese, because its taste was just modelate, not too hot. I put the eel on the fried rice.

Zhuhai(珠海) part1

I've been to Zhuhai in China as business trip for 10 days .　It was my first visit to China.


It took about 5hours from Narita to Hong Kong airport. Then the train brought me to Ferry Terminal.

After about 80minuites ferry cruise, I got to Zhuhai.









The first night's resutaurant picked by my colleague was famous for 'Xiaolongbao(小籠包)' in Gongbei town. So juicy!















'Haizu' beer sounded a coined word of Zhuhai. Taste itself was light, and it made meals better.

'Gonbei' was just flourishing town. There was full of lots of energy.

Kite-flying

Since we missed the chance to do kite-flying during new year's holidays, we tried it today.

It was definitely her first experience, and she did it!









But she got lazy soon...

We had good time there anyway.

Gerbera

My wife arranged Gerbera in a small pot on the table.

Sometimes the flower gives us something relaxed. The language of this pink Gerbera seems to be 'noble beauty'. I was surprised there were several meanings about Gerbera by its color.

Rearrangement

We rearranged our room today.

These pix, precious memories give us much energy.

We especially like this phrase ' Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.'

4th Birthday Party

I joined my wife's parents' home today.

My father-in-law prepared this special Shochu 'MAOU' for our daughter's birthday. It likely took three years since he ordered it. Can you believe it?

She had great time. Happy birthday!

TENRYU river again

Today, the last day of consecutive holidays, I thought I should return to Numazu in early morning.

But something brought me to the TENRYU river again. I guess I felt something was missing in the yesterday's fishing result.

I used #6 tackle today also, since the long cast was needed at this hole.

I arrived there about 11AM. It was tough condition there today. I got late first small one around 2PM.

2nd one,21inches/54cm, was very good fighter.

Sammy-san helped landing and took this pic for me. The fly was his original killer pattern 'LTM'. It worked well there. Thanks, Sammy-san!

3rd one, 21inches/53cm, was also strong.

I decided this one should be the last one today, and left there around 16:30.

Next year's annual season pass must be needed for me.

*annual license; 4,000yen one day license; 1,500 yen

TENRYU river C&R section

Book-san, my dad's colleague and crazy fisherman, invited me to the TENRYU River Catch and Release section to enjoy fly fishing.

That was the reason why I stayed at my parental home last night.It was my first fly fishing after back to Japan.

As you can see in the right pic, there was a kind of crowded.
It seemed to be the best method to use nymph and indicator there.

Thanks to Book-san's great advise, I got beginner's luck there in the morning.

It was not wild but hatchery fish though, its bigness pleased me a lot(24inches/61cm).

I couldn't catch any additional fish in the afternoon, but had a good time there. Thank you again, Book-san.

Winter Solstice at my parental home

I went to bed about 4AM and woke up at 1:30PM. What a nasty single life...

After some housework, I headed for my parental home in the evening for some reason.

It was Winter Solstice(Toji), the shortest daytime in a year, today. So my mom prepared a hot citron bath and the pumpkin boiled with soy sauce and sugar, as Japanese traditional custom,

We Japanese believe these keep us healthy from long ago.

Single Bell

Since my daughter finished her first semester of her kindergarten, she and my wife went to her parents' house prior to me today.

I likely should enjoy my temporary bachelor's life. I have three consecutive holidays from tomorrow.