I'm in the school gym. I'm in the gym because the students are having a lecture on 'Adolescence'. I don't understand what is being said but from the pictures on the projector screen it probably has something to do with puberty and child birth. It's been some time since my last post despite my best intentions otherwise but I thought i'd make the effort and give an update. I guess the main things going on right now was the visit from Eliana and James, and the fact that summer holidays are coming up soon. But before I get into i'll run you through the little things that have occured since we last communicated.
I was invited to attend a firefly festival (hotaru matsuri) by one of my teachers. I wasn't really massively keen to go as the teacher in question speaks next to no English what-so-ever but I thought maybe if I could russle up a friend then a festival can't be too bad right? So I got the friend (Kevin) and we arrived maybe one or two hours after the festival had started.
Only this 'festival' was actually a collection of about five families that set up a tent and use a big barbeque to cook food. This 'festival' was not really a festival at all so upon our arrival we were announced to everyone via the karaoke machine they had set up and we recieved a round of applause. It was a good thing that Kevin speaks Japanese very well as I certainly don't so with his help I think everyone had a good night.
## The fireflies were smaller than I imagined and their light was this yello/green neon. For some reason I fully pictured dragon fly sized insects with a light the colour of ET's finger. Optimistic? They were still nice though.
The next weekend was a barbeque by the river. The Japanese people often can't go to the sea but they insist on the water component. So we went out to the riverside which is mostly rocks and crappy pointy grass and had a Japanese style barbeque even though none of us are Japanese. Tell you who was Japanese? The two kids that walked by our barbeque and ended up being invited to eat something. Then, very much like seagulls, they left and came back with more friends who were hungry. I got drunk so I had a good time.
## Not to suggest that getting drunk is the only way to have a good time. But it helps.
(picture; fireworks at the bbq. Melted my glasses and some of my hair)
So THIS weekend James and Eliana decided to haul ass up to visit me as a part of their travel plans around Japan. They had to drop a friend off at the airport and they missed the originally planned bus so I ended up picking them up around 12:00am which was a bit of a drainer but it was alright. They stayed at my place for two nights and on the Sunday we went to Nikko which is this really beautiful place up in the mountains. It's pretty much bursting at the seams with shrines, temples, and visitors. It's only about an hour away from my house though (down one road!) and it was a lot of fun to see the old shrines and explore the place. We found this really nice black shrine up this long, uphill path that didn't look regularly visited but was surround with this electronic monitering machinery (I guess they need to put it somewhere?).
(pictures; the aforementioned shrine and sake bottles.)
So summer holidays are coming up soon! I get 6 weeks off and I have Sally coming for 2 weeks (Aug 1st - Aug 14th) and then David is coming up for two weeks (Aug 15th - Aug 28th) so I'll be a pretty busy douchebag! It's good though as it'll be fun to see Japan with different people and I'm massively excited to see them and to show them around my town and what not. It's going to be grand.
It was so hot today.
Oh and I found some NEW glasses. Real Ray Bans! Club Masters! 3100 yen!
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