The whole Gujo group

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

An assortment of English teachers in yukatas, English teachers not in yukatas and two very, very kind students who acted as guides and cultural advisors

Gujo-Hachiman, on the Nagara River

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

An old alley, somewhere in Gujo-Hachiman

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

It was just like Kyoto, but with less people

Dance Dance Dance!

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

Considering I went all the way into the wilds of Gifu for an all night festival dance, the fact that I only took one photo of the actual dancing is inexcusable. But in my defence, this was one of the brief moments in-between thunderstorms

I know some of the people I went with were taking videos, so I'll link them when they turn up online

かき氷

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

Blake is hot and annoyed! Only the restorative powers of strawberry-flavoured shaved ice (450-590 bonus to Hp, 5 minute cooldown) can bring a grin to his face!

The moon and the castle in the darkness

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

The night ablaze

I think I'm all Hanabied out.

Yesterday I caught a train from my Japanese lesson in Toyohashi all the way across Aichi prefecture to Inuyama (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuyama) for the Inuyama fireworks festival. For those who have never been to Inuyama, it's a rather nice, medium-sized town right on the border of Aichi/Gifu. It is home to Inuyama castle, which was built in the early 16th century and is the oldest castle in Japan. The castle itself is perched on a hill overlooking the extremely picturesque Kiso river, and is probably one of my most favourite places outside Kyoto.

After meeting up with some coworkers and friends/students of coworkers, we headed across the river into Gifu to find a good place to watch the fireworks. Some people in our group had camped out early and gotten a spot right on the riverbank, a few hundred metres across the river from the castle. As such, when the fireworks did start going off it was like being on the receiving end of a pretty artillery bombardment



During the course of the evening, I thought I was being bitten by mosquitos. Strangely, they seemed to swarm right after the bigger fireworks detonated. It wasn't until half way through the show that we realised we were exactly downwind of the explosions, and close enough to the fireworks barrage to be pelted by tiny, hot rocket fragments.

I made a good choice when sitting next to Adam, whose larger frame shielded me from the worst of the barrage. I think I owe him a coke or something :p

As I'm now on summer vacation, I have a few more (non-hanabi) events in the works for this week. Please stay tuned!

-Blake

Something relevant from Megatokyo (of all places)

I've pretty much washed my hands of Megatokyo at this point. A rambling, romantic 'comedy' storyline I can handle, but a few weeks worth of missed updates I can not. As such, I nearly missed this post from Dom, who has recently visited Nagoya for the world cosplay championships

Welcome to the Tropics:
http://www.megatokyo.com/strip/1147#rant927

His thoughts on Nagoya are pretty accurate. But as for his hell? Well sonny-jim, that's been my life for the PAST THREE MONTHS

The Hellion Eye

Now, it doesn't take much to amuse me. An old Super Nintendo game incased in a sheet of bubble wrap will keep me entertained for hours (days, if aforementioned game is a rpg). As such, my only recent discovery of Google Map's Street Views looks like it will keep me in its digital grasp or a while to come

I remember being surprised when I could make out my old house in Australia from Google maps. Now I can see a picture from essentially the curb-side of every single house in my old neighborhood.

The Street View service hasn't been rolled out into Japan yet (I shudder to think of the nightmare that would be photographing all of Japan's urban areas), so until then I'm going to keep myself amused with what I normally do while searching Japan- see if I can find the Emperor's secret outdoor hot tub at the Imperial Palace

(*Goes back to Google Maps*)

-Blake

Anjo Tanabata Festival 2008 (during the day)

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

This is from the other end of main street. It was pretty, but ridiculously hot. I went through several bottles just walking through the streets.

Tsuna fared a little better though- she had the forethought to at least bring a hat.

The view from my room

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

Try teaching English while several thousand people are outside your window and all you can hear is Jpop from the speakers around the station and the drums of nearby marching bands

Anjo Tanabata Festival 2008

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

This is a picture of main street taken from Anjo Station. For those of you who have traveled around these parts, the old Nova building is on the left out of frame and the local UFJ is on the left.

Burning Sky

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

I took this photo behind a shed at the Komoro Shrine in Toyota during the annual Oiden Festival. I was behind a shed because that was the only place in town that night that didn't have more than four people packed into 1 square metre.

This was the fireworks finale. It sounded like the end of the world, and it lit up the sky like it was late evening, not 9:00 at night

Tanabatagate

Reuters (Nagoya)

Recent reports from Anjo, Japan have described an unhealthy increase in the amount of community fellowship followed by an upswing in the number of people who have flocked to Anjo like lemmings to a sharp drop.

Leading Japanologists are baffled, but some point to the shiny decorations hanging from bamboo poles that sprouted up in a single night last Thursday as the source of the phenomena.

"It's something that we can't really guard against," said Dr. Watanabe of the Watanabe Institute for Watanabe studies. "No one knows how to resist the siren call of shiny pieces of paper and 500 yen karage."

A brief glance of Asahi-machi on Saturday morning revealed many people stumbling through the streets, clasping overpriced festival food and sweltering in the morning humidity. However, some are trying to put a bright face in the face of tragedy

"Yeah, it's not too bad," said one extremely handsome foreign resident, "I've had yakitori and beer for breakfast, lunch and dinner"