Hiroo Obon Festival

I went to visit Dave and KT in Hiroo for the Obon Festival. The Obon Festival is a Japanese Buddhist tradition to honor the spirits of those who have passed. It has been celebrated for more than 500 years and has evolved into a family reunion holiday which lasts for 3 days. I was really hoping that I would see a community celebrating together and I wasn't disappointed! To tell you the truth, I was blown away by the whole thing. The sound of the music, the dancing, the excitement from the little ones, the look of pride on the parents faces as they watched their little child in their traditional Japanese clothing enjoying taking part in the dance, watching the elderly look with so much love for their family. I could go on... but I have never just never seen anything like it in my life... apart when I have been with my family. The whole event just felt like a massive family and even though I wasn't part of that family, I still felt that I was welcomed. Here are a few photos that literally take the words out of my mouth...

I took a couple of videos to so that you guys could watch the dancing and listen to the music, it was very relaxed and everyone was joining in the dance on the floor. One lady came up to me with her little girl (who had obviously said something to her mum about asking me to dance with them) clinging around her waist and asked me if I wanted to join in the dancing (not directly - a few japanese words - a few english words a few hand gestures) I smiled and replied Thank you, but its ok (in Japanese). They lingered around us for a minute or so and then joined back in the dance, as the little girl walked away she waved at us. It was adorable.


The drumming was the only part of the music that was live at this festival- which I thought it would of been great it if it had all been live, but the drummers were really fascinating!

I only noticed this lady towards the end but she was dancing close to the staging area and showing people how to do the steps, It was great. Luckliy for me this next month is FULL of festivals all over Tokyo... Next week Shinjuku!!!! Here is Dave and KT enjoying the festival!

Some opinions we wanted to share

Ok so we have had quite a productive week, neither of us have jobs yet but we have had interviews or are returning for the follow up interviews. The pressure certainly is on... we are in a new surrounding... wanting to see new things but on a very tight budget. We will let you know how we get on job wise, but we will definitely be cutting spending down to a minimum, I guess using our money mainly on traveling, we don't have to be spending money to be seeing/doing something different!!!

The picture at the top is another one from our local park in Hiroo.

Anyway, there are a handful of things we have noticed since being here, and wanted to share with you guys...

• People leave there bikes parked up all around the city and yet I haven't seen any bike chains at all.
• The first time I saw a homeless person here I was shocked. I think because there seems to be no apparent class system in Tokyo its very hard to understand the massive gap from what someone would consider a homeless person, to maybe what they would consider working class.
• Japanese ladies, are always carrying an umbrella whether it is to not get wet or to protect their skin for the sun
• Everything is "cute" - restaurants with a photo of their food on the window with a smiley face, or a drug store which is practically pink the whole way through. Also, the dogs... hm maybe I'll start a new bullet point
• The dogs here... it seems the smaller the better, honestly some of the dogs here are just the cutest thing you have ever seen!!! The crazy thing is though, their owners seems to treat them like their children... the dogs wear dresses, socks, bows or their heads... I mean we have seen a couple of time people walking around with shoulder bags, and a tiny dogs head poking out the top. (I'm gunna have to take a photo!!!) The most ridiculous thing we have seen so far though - there was a woman walking ahead of us with a tiny little poodle or something on a lead. She had stopped and bent down unzipping her bag. When we actually came to passing she had put the dog in her back, and was zipping it up!!! I was so shocked... I walked past staring with my mouth wide open!

 Another thing is I have never ever been so aware of wildlife as I am here, I was sat in Hiroo park on a rock very close to the large pond that is there... there was a terrapin sat on the end of the rock...  more terrapins swimming close by, ducks, pigeons, drangonflies, butterflies and fish. It's quite amazing!!!
This video below, was a quick film I took at the park when I realised that I was totally surrounded by wildlife... it was quite surreal... which too be honest, this who trip has been so far... I wonder at what point is this going to feel "natural".

We have done sooo much in 24 hours!

So, we landed 24 hours ago! we have done soooo much! Went for a meal with Uncle Dave and KT last night which was cool. We had some lovely stuff but it was a realisation moment as Fran is vegetarian and I have ALOT of food allergies... main one being rice. which is pretty crap!!! And all the rice meals look really so so so good as well - so unfair!
So we had a task today... to get the flat key cut! so Uncle Dave took us a bit of a tour, drew us a map and gave us a few maps of the subway and of Shibuya to help us find our way around.

We came out of the train station to this... Shibuya Crossing!!! my goodness it's big, with sooo many people. God knows what it's gunna be like on a weekend! Crazy I'm sure! We didn't seem to have any problem finding what we needed, followed the map to find the keycutting place and then we just wandered around Shibuya. Now I'm sat in the flat it was pretty surreal!!!

We were stood on the side of the road looking at our map of Tokyo and an American gentleman came up to us to help us, it was so nice of him as we didn't even ask. And then the same thing happened about a hour later... got the map our and a lovely Japanese girl came over and asked if she could help us. We both thought it was lovely!!!

 We were both feeling quite tired so decided to come back, so we got the metro to Hiroo Station where we had been told there was a Supermarket. KT had mentioned that there was a park over the road from it so we were thinking typical english park... flat green grass and maybe a play area for the kids... but oooooh no! how wrong were we!?!

More like a small nature reserve!!!! it was beautiful. loads of trees, small paths leading up and down and pond and a small river and a few small waterfalls!

there were ducks, birds, tortoise, butterflies and dragon flies!!! It was beautiful!! we had a lovely walk!

Also, we were walking along and there was the smalest tortoise just sat on the footpath, I wanted to move him so that he wouldn't of got trodden on so I had to take a picture!!! look How Cute!!!

Anyway, the jet lag is going ok I guess, feeling quite disoriented... don't know whether that's the time difference or being in a new place, but sure everything it will be fine soon. I think are going to sort our visa stuff out tomorrow so will write then

Also, don't forget, you can hit the comment button at the end of each entry/post and leave us a little note, that would be cool :-) and also, ALL our photos whilst we are over here in Japan will be on our new Flick Photostream - Fran and Vicki's Photos so please keep checking what we are up to. and Hope everyone back home is well!!!!