Oshino Village, Nigori-ike pond and the Shinnasho-gawa river

The previous post in this series is here..

After coming back from the shrine, we got back to the van and drove to teh Oshino Village.

It is a village that is preserved in its original state. This place reminded us of Ballarat in Australia for many reasons.

The ponds, the huts, the little details all transported us to a different place and time. Then we walked behind the village along bamboo fences to the river banks lined with Cherry trees. The blossoms were just amazing!

The river was flowing gently and the flower petals were everywhere on the gently flowing water. It was an amazing experience.. We also got to eat large Fuji apples.. the original! They were delicious! The rest of the group had a peach tea also which they loved.

Here are the photos from this leg of the trip..

and a video highlights reel..

Our driver said there was one more stop before lunch and we had to rush a bit if we wanted to get back to Tokyo before getting stuck in traffic. So off we went to the next stop.

After a 10 year wait...

There used to be a large apple tree in our backyard when we moved into this house 13+ years ago. It was one of the big draws for us to get the house.. then we went through construction and the construction workers cleaned up their paint brushes under the tree, peed near it and before we know it, we lost the tree to some disease..

It took me some time to get over having to cut it to the roots so the disease wouldn't spread to other trees. Shortly after that I planted another apple tree. It never grew tall and its top branches were always breaking with the weight of squirrels and there were 5 mini stunted apples a few years ago.. we were also going through a drought.

We are having more flowers this year..

and we have apples on the tree. After almost 10 years, we are seeing apples in bunches!

This made my day..

Was searching old blog posts to find a picture of the apple tree.. we used to have a beautiful backyard.. not that the current setup is not pretty, but things change over time and it is a part of life. That old tree must have been 30+ years old at least to have that girth and height. 

At least we have planted new trees and hope they will be around for some time..