what do you see?

Not much news to report this time...things are going on pretty well, and Christine's trying to get a transfer to a different school at the moment, to be nearer to Tokyo. Still hot...I think we're somehow getting used to it though. The weekend starts now for us - we might go to the beach somewhere in Chiba on Monday...

Ah of course, last weekend was the local hanabi (fireworks) festival (there is one roughly every week throughout the summer in the different cities). Fireworks in Japan are amazing - they go on for about an hour and a half, with huge, very colourful, weirdly shaped fireworks. We watched the recent ones from the river-bank just in front of our house, as the stations nearer were packed completely solid several hours before the fireworks even started! There were a lot of people even near our house which is probably a couple of miles from the actual launching place - mostly families with a lot of children, blankets, food, barbecues and a lot of beer. Somehow everyone seemed to know that is was finished even though there was no obvious way of telling - people stood up as one and walked off leaving us sitting bemused in the darkness. It was cool to see so many people wearing traditional yukata (summer kimonos)!