afraid of small animals

Happiness is...

...a clean kitchen.  A very, very clean kitchen.  If only I had a before shot.

Kumano Fireworks

In August, I went down to Kumano with thousands of other people to see the famous fireworks from the beach.  Lauren and Kara saved seats for all of the northerners, so we had a nice spot on the beach even though there were mobs of people there to see the festivities.  The show was made up of a bunch of short shows, with announcements about sponsors in between.  But honestly, one small part of this show was about comparable to most of the fireworks shows I have ever seen.  This was pretty amazing. 

The coolest part about this fireworks show was that there were lots of fireworks that exploded on the surface of the water.  I had only ever seen the ones that get shot up in the sky, so I was impressed by the big half circles on the surface of the water--they are right at eye level!  My camera didn't take a lot of good shots, so I am stealing the shot of the summer from Chito:

"The centerpiece of the show. 1m in diameter, and weighing in at 250kgs. Loaded onto a steel barge and exploded about 400m away from the shore, nothing can quite prepare you for it."  When this went off, it lit up the beach so that it felt like daytime.  Everyone felt the shock waves hit us in the face, and the echoes of the big boom were heard off of the mountains (and the water?)--it was fantastic.   

Run of the mill fireworks shows just might not impress me anymore. 

Nagashi Somen

It's been more than a month since the big Nagashi somen barbeque but it's never too late to post some pictures of all the noodle-slide fun!

Snatching all of the noodles before they get to the kids.

There were kids galore at this barbeque.  I remember a few years ago when there were only a handful of us.

I was so thrilled to see my old friend and co-worker, Ota Sensei.  Chito was thrilled to grab somen from the bamboo. 

Nagashi jelly!

Getting ready for fresh grilled ayu (bring back memories of my first trip to Japan, Mum?).

It's not an event at Sawaki Sensei's house without a big group picture.  I am going to miss all of these events when I leave Japan.  Was this my last nagashi somen?  I hope not!