Week 22: Mountains are nice!

Yay!! Another long weekend!! Now that they've started coming, the long weekends just won't stop!!

The other day I caught another one of the mega-crickets in my room, and I finally remembered to take a picture of him. When I went to take the picture, I noticed something alarming: there was also a spider trapped under the glass!! So I managed to somehow catch the spider without even seeing him! Two in one blow!

You can understand why I thought this was a horrifying spider at first. Note blond, less-horrifying spider in behind of cricket.

I had an amazing mid-week adventure this week because I attended a lecture at the main campus of Hokkaido University! The campus itself was really beautiful with fall colours... although I neglected to take pictures, except for a few quick snaps from the 5th floor of a building.

Surrounded by mountains!

There was also a lunar eclipse on Wednesday evening!! When we noticed that it had begun, the entire lab ran out of the building to ooh and aahh at the sky. I took an awful picture but you can kind of see that the moon is weird-looking? It was really awesome to see it happen!

We like the moon!

On Saturday I finally went back to Kanariya, the yarn store, and had a looong look around. I made a hat for myself a few weeks ago, and last weekend my friend's daughter was really ogling it, so I took the plunge and threw one together for her :)

Purple in Japanese is murasaki!

I also bought some SOCKS!! I love socks. I have a sock problem. I had approximately 100 pairs of socks before I was tragically forced to pare down my collection before I left the country. I threatened to take an entire suitcase full of socks with me to Japan but my mom convinced me that it would be a poor choice. 

Could I BE a better adult?

I took this picture on my way home on Saturday. I think this is as fall-y as the colours are going to get, because the leaves have been raining down lately and I think the trees are going to be bare soon.

On Sunday we climbed Mt. Moruyama! As soon as we arrived we ran into this guy. People lost their minds, especially when a squirrel mad an appearance. Apparently chipmunks are kind of rare here?? 

Chip / Dale

I think this is the first time I've ever climbed a mountain. It was pretty steep in places, but luckily this old girl is a sure-footed as a mountain goat! 

As we reached the top of the mountain, I heard a rustling in the bushes beside me. I expected to see a bird or a chipmunk, but instead it was a wild mountain beast!!

He ran around at the top of the mountain for 10-20 minutes until some bigger dogs (on leashes) showed up.

The view from the top of the mountain was nice (but not as nice as Mt. Moiwa).

On the way down we saw something VERY interesting: CLOUDS AND CLOUDS of snow bugs! Earlier this week my prof mentioned to me that there are some little white flies that appear in the fall, and when you see them, snow is only a week or so away. I guess I'd better unpack my boots because there were really loads of these bugs. Maybe they aren't snow bugs (my google skillz led to inconclusive results) but they fit the descriptions that I heard from two people.

Get ready for winter!

I also have another entry in the "weird signs" category. This one was actually a tile on the street.

"Let's take away the dog poop!" Sounds like fun!!!

Monday is a holiday here for Sports Day. I am going to celebrate by watching the Sens game (which should be on early in the morning in Japan!) and then wearing a hockey jersey all day. Happy Thanksgiving!!