Tachinebuta and Barbequeue

These two little monkeys are called Nagisa (the girl) and Moreh (the boy). They are both members of Akiko's niece and nephew crew. Aki has actually got three nephews and two nieces altogether, and I met them all last night at her parents' house. There we had a barbequeue, and I struggled with my Japanese while Aki's mum struggled with her English. In fact it went really well, right up until Aki's Eldest brother got too drunk and tipped the garden swing over. Man, that guy got really drunk. He was saying to me "Maybe, Aki not pretty, but, personality good deshou?", in response to which I explained that his sister had actually matured into a very attractive girl, and that it was natural that he didn't find her attractive because he was her brother.

Anyway, I left at around 9.45pm, just as I was getting tired. Her mum only lasted until about 9.15pm and then had to go to bed because she had been drinking too quickly.

I also have pictures from the Sunday night festival that we went to in Goshogawara. This was the tachinebuta, or, standing nebuta. All of the floats were big, most of them were tall, and there were some that just got ridiculous. The atmosphere at the Goshogawara nebuta was very different from the others. There was a sense of latent anarchy in the air, like somebody could just start something silly at any given moment. Nobody did though, and the night finished off very impressively.



This guy seemed to know Jamie, who was sat on the corner with the rest of us. He seemed to come up and say something like "Hey Jamie, my name is Tom" and then he walked off. Jamie strongly claimed never to have met the guy before in his life though.

This is photo of my favourite float. 'The Guy with the Hammer' float. This was a really tall one as well.



And that's about all there is to tell about the weekend. I'm pretty tired today, so I'm going into the tatami room for a quick kip. See you.