It sucks. it's hot, sticky, wet, and miserable. but all the agony makes us appreciate the small reprives from the heat as we step into (gulp!) work, a department store, or anywhere else that uses air conditioning. it is also the time for summer festivals as you can see here. this is a picture of me and my friends on sunday when we went to the Ueno Park Summer Festival after work. i was so impressed and proud that everyone wore their japanese garb (i personnally dressed all but one of the girls and the boys). and despite the heat and the confininf nature of the yukatas, we still had a great time. Ueno park has a beautiful lake which we walked around after consuming some terrible festival food from the concessions stand (sidebar: festival food is actually quite bad. it's grilled corn on a stick, octopus balls, giant wieners on sticks, yakisoba, etc which is food that is actually good when it doesn't come from a festival stand. but the awful nature of the festival food is part of what makes the festival, the festival. bad festival food reminds me of my dad for some reason. consequences of a warped mind.) the walk way was lined with antique dealers and other vendors which made the stroll around the park fun.
my friends and i always end up at some dodgy izakaya and i get plastered and it makes for an embarassing nite for me (albeit a funny one for them). so when i read about this festival, i thought it would be great to actually get a bunch of us together to do something together rather than just get drunk. my friends and i do things when we're one on one (see movies, make dinner, go shopping, bowling, etc.) but it's tough when we're in a group. so we decided that it would be good to try to hit a festival every week if we can (no sense in letting our yukatas go to waste) and certainly we can wear them in september when the obon festivals start! now that will be fun (and hopefully a bit cooler . . . .)
summer also means fireworks. last year i went to the very famous Sumida River fireworks display. it was hands down, the WORST fireworks show i'd ever been to. the sheer number of people, the way it took me 2 hours to get home, the way we all got separated from each other, the madness! AAAARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!! so never again. i'd rather watch it on TV or go to a smaller show. that would be better. maybe we can go to the park and do our own fireworks this year. that would be fun too! picnic and fireworks!
hopefully, that wasn't too boring. i'm trying this thing where i'm attempting to be less negative (i just read on the internet that pessimists die a lot earlier than optimists. not that i want to live forever or even too long, especially at the rate i'm going now but it can't hurt to try new stuff from time to time). we'll see how long this lasts.
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