Tis the season of summer festivals!

It’s been a blast. It all started with the Beer festival in the last week of July. Surprisingly enough, it was the first time that I had attended this particular festival in the three years that I had been here. As far as beer festivals go, it was pretty much what I had expected it to be. Many local (Japanese) beers and the Japanese variety of German foods. There was a stage with dancing and entertainment. It was fun.

After that, we had the Uneme festival. This was the fourth time that I had attended this particular festival. I’m still not entirely sure what the story is with this one. I have heard that there are connections with another prefecture. It has something to do with a love story between Koriyama and Nara. As far as the festival goes, there are a lot of food vendors, dancing in the streets, and it was very relaxing. It’s one of my favorite weekend festivals.

After that, we have Obon, which is a week long mourning holiday. Since I don’t have any family here to mourn, it just ends up being a week long vacation. One of my friends came to visit, so we ended up seeing quite a few places in Japan. Some of which I had never seen before. The highlight was wake boarding and Kyoto. I had a few friends with a boat that took us to the lake where we went wake boarding. Needless to say, I wasn’t very good. I have only been a couple times before, and have never really been able to get up for very long. The same thing happened this time. Tried three times, and really couldn’t stay up for more than 5 seconds. haha. The next day, we went to Kyoto. We were pretty sunburned already, and it was really hot. We were still able to see a few places. Pictures added to the gallery. We rented bikes on the second day, so that we didn’t have to walk long distances.

The month of festivals ended up with the Sukugawa fireworks festival. This is the biggest fireworks festival in Fukushima. It was really amazing.

Anyway, pictures, have been added to the gallery.

See you later everyone.