So much to say, too little time to say it. Got caught up on a lot of my magazine reading on the trains today, till the last one, when this great looking piece of tuna with nice perfume stood next me for the whole ride to my station………No concentration then!
Went to a festival in Isehara yesterday. I was invited by a Japanese guy I have played golf with a couple of times and come to find out he is connected to Isehara’s chamber of commerce! Did not know that. Nonetheless the day was a lot of fun and ended up going with him and friends to one of his favorite watering holes to eat sushi and drink beer. Needless to say, my weak Japanese got more than a work out as only he spoke English and his English is about as good as my Japanese! However with beer, all things are possible!
This festival was to celebrate “Doukan” (???, Doukan Oota, a famous samurai. The real purpose of the festival is draw people to the city center of Isehara, located at the base of Mt. Ooyama (a great place to go hiking by the way!), and get them to spend money on food and beer. To accomplish the latter they brought in some talent from Tokyo:
The girl underneath the umbrella is Shouko Noda (?????? of the television show, Ururun(literally means eyes wet with tears). Its a travel show where an semi famous person goes to homestay with a family in another country (usually less well off than Japan) and at the end they always leave crying……:
She is the girl on the left in this photo from the show…..
Here she is being welcomed with the actor whose name I now forget, but who was hired to play doukan:
And of course no matsuri would be complete with out taking the Mikoshi for a ride!
After that…it got dark. And then I drank beer……..(fade to black!)
Skippy-san
