Just another little update. Since the last post about two weeks ago I feel like I've been settling into a certain routine. Work through the week, which moves much faster than I thought it would, and then go out and explore places on the weekend. So far it has been mostly food places, cafes, restaurants, and thrift stores, all with a good amount of biking in-between. My bike has truly become indispensible, it is such a useful form of transportation for how the land is built here.
On Saturday the 11th of July I got to attend my first festival here, only for an hour but it was still quite the experience.
Tanabata, also known as the Star Festival, was originally a traditonal Chinese holiday that was first introduced to Japan in 755 CE. It celebrates the meeting of two deities, one a weaver and the other a cattle hearder. Once upon a time, they fell deeply in love, but in the process left their duties by the wayside, prompting the weaver's parent the Sky King to seperate them by placing the Milky Way galaxy between them. The weaver was so distraught that their parent let the couple meet just once a year, on the seventh night of the seventh month of the lunar calendar.
It was traditionally a time for people to wish for better sewing, embroidery, or handwriting, but now the wishes can be for academic improvement, relationships, gratitude towards ancestors, wisdom, or sincerity. Wishes are written on small slips of paper and hung on bamboo.
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Shinkansen Feature
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When walking along this road I thought it had a simliar vibe to an elevated highway running through a neighborhood like I have walked along and under countless times in Boston, but as time passed and I went along, it really was notably less intrusive to the neighborhood. Much less noise, silent most of the time, no exits of course so no cars coming off of it to add to local traffic, and the air seemed to be much fresher than, for example, walking near I-93 in Boston. |
Various pictures from walking around today |
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