Country Road...

...on our way home from niigata chieko and i took a drive around her hometown and up a little ways into the mountains...it's so peaceful around here, and so natural compared to a lot of the places i've spend time in while living in japan...i've said before that this is the most beautiful place i've been to in japan, and i'll stand by that claim after this weekend...as you can see there isn't much but rice fields and mountains, both of which are transitioning into winter mode...it's a little early in the season but snow has already begun falling at the higher elevations...



...here's what's left of the foliage...a bit past its prime but still nice to see all those trees...



...a nice meandering, cold river...i realized after looking at these pictures that the lighting is horrible...it was mid-morning sun with clouds...a little too bright, and since i don't really know what i'm doing with a camera, we've got some so-so pictures...



...more trees...i was hoping to see some bears while we were cruising around, but no such luck...we did see a few monkeys, oddly enough, but i didn't manage to get any good pictures of them...that's true, and if you don't believe me i'll send you some crappy pictures of monkeys to prove it...but back to the bears, did you know they had bears in japan?...they are running rampant here at the moment, like hungry bears everywhere, coming down from the hills and into civilization in search of food before they call it a year and curl up for the winter...a guy a few towns over from kanazawa was attacked by one the other day...so i'm on the lookout...



...and from bears, to cows...we stopped by a local barn to check out the cows just before we hopped back on the highway...these are dairy cows, so it was somewhat comforting to know that these cute guys and gals won't be meeting a gruesome end and finding their ways onto my plate any time soon...i don't know when the last time i was this close to cows was, but they are funny animals...when you try to pet them on the snout the go kind of cross-eyed and try to stare at your hand and their big old eyes roll all over the place (cows have HUGE eyes by the way), and then they try to lick you, at which point another cow in the barn starts peeing and you are caught off guard by the power with which cows pee, and it makes my previous 1:31 look like a drop in the bucket, at which point i am snapped out of revelry by the realization that a cow is going at it with my hand...and that, folks, is interaction with cows...



...hope you enjoyed/are enjoying your weekend...our short holiday has flown by in a blink, and it's back to school for chieko and i bright and early tomorrow morning...