Stoat - Where?

Festival season is rapidly coming to a close, so I thought I’d better make the most of it and see one more while I had the chance. Ogaki, the town where I work, has its festival today and tomorrow and it is the biggest one I’ve been to. Despite working there, I’ve seen virtually nothing of the town itself as my branch is actually in the train station. Apart from a few brief sojourns to buy food now and again, I hadn’t ventured into the city proper until today. Most of the time I’m guessing it’s pretty much the same as most of the rest of modern Japan, lots of buildings, quite featureless and a kind of grey urban sprawl. For the festival though, there were hundreds of brightly coloured stalls lining every available sidestreet and pavement, mostly selling food, though also cheap plastic toys and games of skill.
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Biwa lake is the largest lake in Japan and probably holy for some reason or another. It’s also a lot closer than I thought, - my Japanese geography (like my English geography), leaves a lot to be desired. One of the perks of Gifu is its central position which allows easy access to almost everywhere in Japan. Today, me and Eric took advantage of this and made the one hour journey to Hikone, a small castle town right next to the lake.
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