Hanabe Taikai

On the first Saturday in August the city of Ichikawa traditionally has a fireworks display. This past Saturday night was "it". The fireworks are set off at the edge of the Edogawa River which is the boundary between Chiba Prefecture and the City of Tokyo (which is big enough to be it's own Prefecture!) A levee runs along the river and I have never before viewed the show from inside the levee. The trick is to have friends who stake out a place beforehand (early in the day on Saturday) by fastening down a blue tarp on the ground. The friends then take you to the spot or direct you by use of the numbers on top of the levee and a mobile phone conversation.
This year our pastor was convinced to be the person to reserve a place for anyone connected with the church or OMF to have a place to sit.

When you reach your tarp by cautiously skirting around everyone else's, you leave your shoes at the edge and find a comfortable spot. Once seated, food is the first order of business, and various cold foods begin to appear among those in the group and everything is shared around. Some groups brought small portable lights for their group others just ate and chatted in the quickly falling darkness.

The show starts promptly at seven with a few speeches from local dignitaries and then with the actual display. The great majority of the fireworks are shot high into the sky with very little interval between explosions. There were occasional diversions to displays at the water's edge accompanied by appropriate music. One featured the Olympic rings and an outline of Mt Fuji.

The program with one break of about 5 minutes lasted an hour and a half. I tell people that the colors are on a broader spectrum than I have seen at home. There are pinks and lavenders and soft greens in addition to bright colors. The other great difference I have read is that Japanese fireworks are spherical while those in the US are cylindrical. It makes a big difference in the visual effect. Difficult to describe, wonderful to watch.

The Bank

I've been having trouble lately when I go to the bank. It seems like every time I go either my pass book or my card won't work properly. This means that I have to go from the lobby where the machines are to the second floor where the people are. It has been frustrating even though I usually get what I want with my limited Japanese. I just couldn't figure why I was having so much trouble.

Today the passbook for one of my accounts kept being spit out of the updating machine without updating. So, up to the second floor I went and they did it there for me. I went back downstairs and tried to withdraw some money and the machine kept spitting the card back out. So back upstairs I went. They said the card must be replaced, so I filled out the paper work for that and then asked if I could withdraw money without the card. So, I was given another batch of paperwork to fill out. Some of this required me to copy the kanji for OMF International's official Japanese name, which is always a trying experience.

As I was talking to the really nice lady on the second floor and she's giving me new covers for my passbooks and cards and packages of tissue for my trouble, she said, "Be very careful of magnets." A light bulb lit up in my head at that point. The pouch I have in my purse to keep important things in, like passbooks, has a big old magnet closure on it.

I've been causing my own problems.

Faceboook

I'm quickly developing a love/hate relationship with Facebook. You can comment on things very quickly, but it somehow reminds me of my friends and acquaintences all getting together in one small room and talking all at once. It may well have its uses for good. We'll see.

Hot and Humid

The expression in Japanese is "mushi-atsui", (mushi = steamy, atsui = hot). Being from Florida, it's not that I don't know what hot humid weather is, but here the air conditioning is much more iffy - not every place has it, not every place has central units. Add to that the fact that I live a 15 minute walk from the Office and don't have or even drive a car in Japan. The result is that I sweat a lot here. Thank the Lord for orchestrating the creation of anti-persperant/deodorants. I still sit in church and sweat after my walk, so I fan myself and use a small towel to wipe the drips.
Fortunately the hot humid weather is only June and July with the "rainy season". In late July it switches to mainly hot through the middle of September.

Conference pictures

I've uploaded the pictures I took in Tagajo and Matsushima while at conference. As always, double click on one of the slideshows running at left and it should take you to my Picasa Albums. Click on an album to view the pictures.

OMF East Japan Conference

These are most of us, taken in the parking lot of the hotel in Tagajo where the conference was held. I love it when someone goes to the second floor and sits on the window ledge to get a group shot. No double chins in this picture! (Some of us can use all the help we can get.)

Our annual conference is a great time to see folks who work in the far reaches of our area or who do jobs where our paths don't often cross. We had an afternoon to sight see in the Matsushima area. Did a walking tour of a small island connected by a longish foot bridge with several others. Hit all the souvenir shops, of course and sampled pear ice cream, which in Japan is called La France for reasons I have not yet discovered, and a local specialty - Zunda - which turns out to be chopped, cooked, sweetened edamame. They use it in the same things they do sweet bean paste. It may be an acquired taste.

The Pie Lesson

Today, I had four Japanese women over to my place for a pie lesson. It all started with the apple pie I made for the Christmas dinner last year. One of the people at the party decided it would be great if I would give a lesson on how to make American Apple Pie. It's taken almost 6 months, but we finally did it yesterday. Wouldn't my mother have been amazed that I was teaching women in Japan to do what she taught me as a child?

There are also some pictures of my apartment here on the slide show. None of the kitchen or bath though, maybe later. To view the album with captions with the pictures, double click on the slide show. When your browser takes you to Picasa and my Albums, click on 'Georgia's Apple Dumpling', or view any of the other of my public albums by clicking on them.