Hi Everyone, how are you all?
Japan has been very fun of late. Yesterday, Okawachi-cho celebrated the summer festival - bon odori matsuri. It was very nice. The town set up a festival area with a stage and lots of stalls housing activities and small shops / food stalls etc... I wore my hawaiian shirt to add to the theme. Many japanese people were wearing yukata or summer kimonos which are really nice and colourful and look very japanese. Soon I will have my digital photos online so I`ll let you know the link to them. At the festival there were interesting japanese fair games such as `catch many goldfish using flat rice paper scoop` and such like. My favourite was the turtle stall. There were about a hundred live baby turtles swimming in a shallow tank. For those of you who don`t know - I love turtles! I tried the game which involved attempting to scoop out these little turtles with a special rice paper scoop. The trick is the rice paper melts in the water and if you are not careful, the turtle rips a hole in the paper and falls through and you have to buy another scoop! Well I caught five turtles! Awesome. Because I caught five I got to take one away with me. My kind supervisor bought another turtle for me to be its friend. So now I have two pet turtles at home!!
Today, I set up two bank accounts to pay utilties and for savings. Mr Kuroda-san was very kind and helpful in assisting me to decipher the process. The banks even gave me a little gift for opening an account! they don`t do that in NZ... After opening the accounts Mr Kuroda-san and myself went and bought a medium aquarium for my new turtles and some turtle food. I have set up the tank with stones and water and added little pond plants from a pond near my apartment. The turtles are very happy. I hope they survive for ages. I have another little tank I got at the festival and think I might try keeping some of the little green frogs for a while that live around here. I will then have turtles and frogs! - bliss.
At the festival, many of the women were wearing traditional dress and at a certain time, they all formed two huge circles and danced a special `bon odori` dance about a beautiful centrepiece. It was very rhythmic and hypnotising and I managed to video some of it on my camera. I met lots of the local school kids who are very funny and kid-like. They find me very interesting as the only european about here and I had many introductions. so that was nice.
Today there is a typhoon in Okinawa (southern japan) that is spreading north and is expected to cross my area around midnight - strong winds are expected - hope it will be alright!
Oh, there were beautiful fireworks (hanabi / fire-flowers) at the festival also. A long and beautiful display.

Hope alls well in NZ miss you folks and I send my love to you,

ciao for now.