Recent festival adventures

The other day, my delightful little brother Jeff-a-saurus informed me that I was not updating to his satisfaction, and chided me for not even acknowledging his birthday on my illustrious blog.  Sorry, Jeff; but you try keeping up with writing things when you're trying to register for classes in two countries, exploring the biggest metropolitan area in the world, spending hours talking to Japanese teacher (in Japanese) trying to convince them to move you up a level, becoming an English teacher, and beating Japanese students at drinking games; it's a lot of work.  Also it's been raining, and rain makes me lazy.

I have been having all sorts of adventures, though, and have been meaning to post for a while.  So here are some of my explorations.  (Side note: if anyone is wondering why all my pictures seem to be of food, it is because food is one of my favorite things to explore.)

I've been to a few festivals so far; they've all been small ones and pretty low key.  There will be a lot more later in the summer, when fireworks season arrives; I'm looking forward to them.  Here are some pictures to the first one I went to; unfortunately, it was rained out not long after I arrived, and everyone scurried home (including me).  I went with two friends from Barcelona with whom I have been spending a lot of time.  (Unfortunately it was dark, so the pictures aren't very good). 

Here are a bunch of kids trying to shoot things for prizes.  Pretty standard.  Another popular game is catching goldfish on paper rings, or baby chick on a string.  Obviously one keeps the animals they've caught. 

There was a monkey show by the lake.  They probably did tricks or something. 

Far more interesting than monkeys was the food.  Especially:

Pikachu pancakes!  (Seen here with my friend Pol [pronounced Paul]). This weird close-up was the only way to get an image at the festival.  I was going to take a better photo at home later (along with the excellent Pokemon bag they came in) but I accidentally threw them out.  Imagine my distress when I went to eat my Pikachu pancake leftovers for breakfast the next morning only to find last night's yakisoba garbage instead; I assume you it was dreadful.)  Little pancake bites are common festival food; they're made with honey and not so sweet (things here usually aren't so sweet as in America), but clearly being Pikachu shaped takes them to a whole new level.

More food.  Mmm banana.

These pictures are from a different festival that is quite famous and large; however, we arrived a bit after most of the festivities had died down.  It didn't rain much, though, so we were happy. 

This pond was filled with carp and turtles.  I love turtles, so I was really excited (note how I am looking at the turtles in the pond, and not the camera).

Mochi balls (on a stick):

Delicious.  Which is why I'm making a funny face.  (I console myself that maybe, somewhere on another camera, there are good pictures of me).

There Jeff; happy?