I'm back to fight the evil~
Well, I'm back in Japan!
I got my cell phone up and running again... moved back into my apartment... all that's left to do really is get some internet access back into my home and I'll be ready to start slacking again.
I arrived at like 2pm on Friday, the day I got back was also they day of the going away party for one of my friends who is going to go study abroad in the states.
Everyone decided to do fireworks, so we all went down to 'nitamako' a pretty famous river in Tokyo, and had a little night time picnic/pyro fun.
Hrm. This might be semi-interesting. In Japan when one goes out to do 'hanabi' basically you go out at night, grab a buncha friends, and in our case, sit by a river. There are lots of other people around doing the same thing as well... because... hey... summer means fireworks right? In order to keep everyone happy, someone goes to the nearest convience store and grabs a buncha snack food.
The snack food could consist of potato chips, dried squid strips, wasabi peas, pistachio nuts, 'kaki?' that spicy seed and peanut mix... pocky, chocolates... things like that.
There are some particularly Japanese things about hanabi in Japna as well. There is one type of Hanabi called 'senkou' It is like a weak sparkler that burns upwards on a lose string, and when it finally finishes, a big drop of burning goo falls to the ground. If the goo falls on your foot it will burn a little hole and stay marked for a long long time. Be careful.
Um. Anyway. I'll have a digital camera soon so I can start doing some real reporting.
I'm going to try to get a tour of a Free School in Japan. If I can get in, you'll be sure to hear about it. You can read a little about these alternative schools in the disucssion board in the living section. I'm talking to myself about them.
Until then.
Posted by Harvey at September 07, 2003 11:31 PM
Welcome back, Harvey. By just reading the "News" on your index page listed August 1st, I didn't concentrate on the fact that you were actually updating. :p
Anyway, every kid (and many adults) participates in some kind of quiet, culturally distinctive fireworks play sometime in the summer. What's actually frightening, even as a native Japanese, is how adults give little notice to whether their seven-year old kids are carrying fairly hazardous explosives around or not.
I guess it's one of those "culture things" I'll have to get used to again.
Welcome back, Harvey. By just reading the "News" on your index page listed August 1st, I didn't concentrate on the fact that you were actually updating.Anyway, every kid (and many adults) participates in some kind of quiet, culturally distinctive fireworks play sometime in the summer. What's actually frightening, even as a native Japanese, is how adults give little notice to whether their seven-year old kids are carrying fairly hazardous explosives around or not.