Whan that July/Aug. with his shoures soote

Aw, screw it. When it changes from July to August we apparently throw a festival. It was actually pretty cool, because they closed off part of the main street in Tottori so people could walk around. Oh wait, lemme back up just a tad. I never really gave my city an intro on here, but it needs no intro. No wait, it HAS no intro. Tricky semantics. Tottori city is the capital of the prefecture, but it cheated. The actual city part of the city didn't meet Japanese size qualifications to be labeled a "City", so They (city officials, I assume) expanded the borders of the city to include neighboring towns and then labeled them "Tottori City" (even though those little towns already had names, but we don't talk about that). Then with the combined populations of all the towns, they were able to call themselves a city in a backwards, complicated, cheater way.

But they threw a little party in the streets, and I took a few pics. Wanna see?

This is a game for children where you try to catch fish/ bouncy balls with little paper catcher things. It has an element of challenge because the paper gets wet and breaks easily, so you could end up catching nothing.

And I was kinda fascinated with watching people play, because I had always seen it in anime and manga. Now with real-life quality!

The main street, Wakasa Kaido, was closed off and little booths were set up. I was wandering around with another new JET, Siya (she's from South Africa), and we were amazed at how many people in Tottori could fit on this street. This was just the beginning. It got more crowded, the further up we went.

No explanation. Just overwhelming guilt and cuteness.

I really wanted a picture of some of the people in their kimonos, because they were everywhere, so I spent a lot of time taking stealth shots. This was the best one that came out. I think I'll just say that all the blurriness is on purpose. For the sake of Art.

For some inexplicable reason there were a couple of these ice blocks with flowers in them, in the middle of the street, and people were eagerly fondling them to try and make them melt. But despite how hot it was outside, and all of the touching, none of them melted by the end. So, that's some good ice they got goin' on there.

These fans were being handed out in the street in order to combat the humidity. They have advertisements on them. In English. Clearly, I have a lot of work to do here.


Here's a video I took of the taiko drumming. The quality isn't great but you can still tell what's going on. It was pretty cool to see in person - it was just really powerful, and it looked like a good workout.



Here's a still image. So, I've already taken more pictures, and my camera is fast becoming my new best friend. Also, this weekend will be the Shan Shan Festival where some of the new JETs are performing. There's going to be dancing. With umbrellas. It looks cool, and I'll be ready with my camera.