When will it end?

So, so busy. I can't wait for september. We get to clean the apartment for my parents tomorrow. Katherine leaves today. Some day next month maybe I'll get to celebrate the day I joined my better half. I might get around to posting the pictures from Tanabata next week while my family is out doing tourist-ing things.

Preparing for the beast!

4th of what?

I hope everyone back home had some good days off. They don't celebrate America's independance in Japan, I'm not sure why. They do however sell fireworks all summer long. While Lyndsi was here we managed to burn $4 worth of sparklers (which is probably 2-3x what you would get for $4 in the US.) Not exactly thrilling, but just about as lame as the rest of the holidays we've done in Japan.

Yesterday we went to Hiratsuka for the Tanabata festival. I don't know if I'm just not easy to impress, or if Andrea had talked it up too much, but it was very underwhelming. There were some neat looking "floats." I say floats, but they were just decorations mounted on poles all of the streets. There were some intersting food/animal/toy booths, but overall not really anything too exciting. I have a few pitcures I'll post, but Lyndsi took a bunch, and who knows when she'll have time to email them to me (she's moving back to the US in two weeks.) I alos have a video of some taiko drummers. I'll post that when I get some time.

5 days until Mt Fuji Round 2. I am not sure whether I am looking forward to it or not. Then round 3 two weeks after.

KU @ Tanabata

I guess I can't rotate this one, the downside to uploading stuff from my cell. They have a KU one every year.

Tanabata

This is a taiko drum concert presentation thing.

Woo thunderstorms and sky!!

So rain over night, nothing unusual. I woke up at 3 to the sound of torrential rain and almost constant thunder. I was a little annoyed that I lost 3 hours of sleep, but was plenty excited to get a real thunderstorm. This morning there was even a little blue sky. Mt Fuji was even peaking through the cloud cover. There's only a tiny little spot of snow left. I suppose I'll get to see it up close next week.

The more I clean this apartment, the more I realize how crappy it is. The wood panelled floor is falling apart, the paint is chipping off the walls and bathroom has mold stains from who knows how many years of neglect. I guess that's the problem with cheap housing like this. Oh well, I've seen worse at other people's places, so I'm glad it isn't.

Only the better half going home

Andrea will be going home alone in august. The price of the tickets went up 200 before I could buy it. I know people are going to be bummed not to see me, but there's not much I can do. Maybe there will be time when we move back to the US after next year.

Clouds and rain

I haven't seen the sun in weeks. Too bad.

We went to John's for this party. I ended up cooking for about half the time we were there because he had to pick people up at the train station and get more ingredients that he forgot. It was ok though, kept me away from some of the crazy drunk people. A bunch of them are leaving at the end of the month, so they decided to have one last hurrah. I fortunately didn't end up sloppy drunk like several of them. I only had about one beer. I suppose I can thank all the cooking for that.

Slowly getting things set for everyone to start visiting this weekend. Lyndsi then Katherine, then my family. After that the new JET arrives and then Andrea gets to go home for two weeks. Should be a fun time, busy, but fun.