February is when the plum flowers are in bloom in Japan, and this month’s mountain climbing club mountain was Mt. Hinata. Mt. Hinata is not a very tall mountain, but on the way up there is a famous temple and plum tree garden. The weather in the morning was rainy, but according to the weather forecast it would be sunny in the afternoon. Surprisingly enough, the rain soon stopped and around lunch time the sun came out as predicted.

Hinatayakushi Temple

A beautiful pink plum blossom tree in full bloom.

The plum tree garden. From here it was up the mountain we went.

The sun came out for just in time for lunch.

The onsen. Small but very Japanese, and very nice.

I met with Mr. Hara again, and this time he introduced me to a winter Japanese food: Ankou Nabe. Ankou is Japanese for Anglerfish, the fish that lives in the very deep sea. He took me to a famous, and quite expensive, place specializing in Ankou.

The Ankou restaurant.

An Ankou fish.

The Nabe.

The Ankou liver. A delicacy with 3 small pieces being around $15.

Other dishes made from other Ankou parts

As I left for work this morning I was shocked to see it actually snowing again. I took my time walking in the falling snow to the train station taking some pictures along the way.

The flowers are very confused as the weather has been changing back and forth from warm to cold.

The weather this year is very strange.. some very warm days then suddenly snow.
Yay for global warming!
As the earths and oceans temperature rises, more moisture is evaporated and is in the air. That means more rain when it is warm, and more snow when it is cold… or so the theory goes.

For valentines day I went to my friends cafe to get some chocolate goodies. She made chocolate and peanut butter muffins, chocolate and kumquat tart, and a chocolate roll cake. Absolutely delicious as always.

I found a very small and cheap Japanese bath house near my workplace. After a long week of programming and looking at computers it was nice to relax my arms and stiff shoulders.

This year we have had a very warm winter, almost like we went from Fall to Spring. There has been a lot of warm sunny days and not even that much rain. Then finally, on Feb 1st, we got some snow. The snow kept falling and soon there was enough to have a snowball fight and make snowmen. One of the heaviest snowfalls in Yokohama in recent years.

My somewhat small snowman.

The next everything was covered in snow, but it was also warm and sunny again.

On my lunch break I took a walk through the park.

By the end of the day the snow had completely melted.