A few weekends ago, there was a festival down by my school at the Yasakuni Shrine. A bunch of us decided to go together and see the festival. It was so much fun! I think the best part was that I was finally able to wear my yukata.
We had lots of yummy food too! I had a yakisoba and a ramune (both classic Japanese summer festival foods). And we ended the evening with eating shaved ice. The shaved ice was especially good, because staying in a yukata for any length of time can get pretty warm. We're up to high 80's here most days with almost 100% humidity, so it can feel a bit like a sauna some days.
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| Yakisoba |
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| Ramune |
The next day we went to the beach down in Enoshima. It's the first beach we've been to that we could swim in. We had a blast playing in the waves.
The following Wednesday, I went to Disney Sea with a two friends from my Japanese class.
I think I might actually like Disney Sea better than Disneyland. Sea has more roller coasters, and I like the park's design better.
We went on tons of rides that day, and didn't have to wait in any line for more than forty five minutes. I call that a win! I even went on my first upside down roller coaster. It was really fun. I closed my eyes though, and my friend told me that that was the best part.
I'm not sure if this is just part of going on adventures for me, but I always seem to eat lots of food when I'm out in Japan. And my day at Disney was no different. For lunch I had a pretty tasty curry in the part of the park designed to look like the Aladdin movies.
And then, I got an ice coffee and a berry tart for a snack during the middle of the day.
And for dinner, my friend got a chicken and pesto sandwich while I had a shrimp and salmon bagel which we each cut in half to swap. I have to say that the sandwiched were my absolute favorite treat of the day.
It started to rain in the late afternoon during our trip to Disney, which meant that the rides all accrued really long lines. So, we decided to go watch the Big Band skit inside the Disney Theater instead. I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside the play house, but I was able to snap a quick one of the closed curtains while people were still being seated.
I think my favorite part of the day was taking pictures on board the old steam engine ship. I had lots of fun posing my friends for all the pictures.
Disney in Japan is just a little bit different than Disney in the States. For one thing, Disney Sea here has it's own mascot. His name is Duffy.
He's a teddy bear that's part of the Disney franchise, but he really didn't take off in America the same way he did here. Everywhere you went in the park had someone with either a teddy bear or a Duffy themed key chain. The Japanese love their mascots, though they don't watch the Disney movies very much. For example, the kitten Marie from the Aristocats is an extremely popular accessory here in Japan, but very few Japanese can tell you watch movie she is actually from.
Just yesterday was the biggest fireworks show in Japan. And, I was invited to go to it with a big group of friends. It was another chance to wear my yukata! I met up with the group at 11 in the morning to get changed, and spent the whole day wearing my yukata. Let me tell you! You start to feel the cords used to keep your yukata in place after a few hours.
We got to the location where we were going to watch fire works at about 3 pm. The fireworks didn't start until 7ish. But, we passed the time taking pictures.
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| And maybe taking naps. |
But only for a few minutes. Not wanting to be outdone, Mother Nature let out a huge down pour! I mean, it was massive! I was so wet when I finally got home that I looked like I had just gone swimming! My friend's yukata's dye ran because the rain was so heavy and her legs were dyed blue by the time she finally took it off! It's an experience I will never forget!
Hopefully, in these next two weeks I'll have just as many adventurous tales to tell before I'm headed back for the US of A!
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