Today I spent time with old friends, and it was a very fun girls' day! First we went to a flea market "AKA Free Market" Noda at Sante Park... There were lots of nice things to buy at great prices, and I was surprised by the variety of languages I heard spoken there! Japanese [of course], Chinese, Tagalog and English! It was fun! While shopping we got hungry so we decided to go to a cafe in Tahara. I ordered my favorite... A chicken sandwich on toasted bread... a mound of white meat chicken thinly sliced and topped with a delicious basil sauce, lettuce and tomatos. I will miss those sandwiches when I leave! I will have to try making my own basil sauce! :) Well we all had the same sandwiches, but were still a little hungry [we had a "betsu bara" which technically means "separate stomach" but in practice it means "there's always room for dessert!!"], so we went to the crepe shop next door. I got a strawberries and cream cheese crepe. We walked from there to the kite festival going on around the library. It was really nice walking through the area where groups were flying the kites, cooking food, watching, talking, and just enjoying the festival atmosphere. This was my third time to see the kite festival, but it was by far the best weather we've had for it since I have been here. It was a very sunny and summery day with JUST the right amount of wind. Considering they were forcasting rain I think we are really lucky! Possibly because my friends and I are all "hare onna" [sunshine girls] and getting us together creates an unstoppable force for sunshine!
At any rate it was fun talking with people [including plenty of my students], watching the competitors strategize and give orders to teammates [it was a kite battle!], and seeing the whole culture of the kite-battle world... I still can't figure out the techniques that they use [I am by no means an expert kite-flyer] but I know that they lace the kite strings with glass powder. My best understanding is that each team has a specific number of kites that they can fly throughout the competition, and the team that cuts the most kites down without having their own kites fall is the winner... Just looking at the kites is interesting. Some teams represent families. Others represent a company or organization. Toyota has a team [there is a factory in town] and so does City Hall. It is a very interesting festival that brings the community together in a unique way. Well after walking all the way up and down the line of team tents and vans we went back to the open space in front of the library and practiced flying kites of our own. It was fun but my kite was a bit broken and preferred to do donuts in the sky... Oh well! After some kite-flying time we took our "betsu-betsu baras" and drove to Toyohashi to get some famously delicious cakes at a shop there. Then we went to an imports store to get drinks and took our loot to a nearby park for a picnic... It was deliciously fun! I purchased a bottle of sparkling grape juice for all to share. As soon as we sat down a small flock of pigeons came to check us out... Apparently they could tell that we had brought food... We tried several methods to scare them away but nothing was working. Well when Elizabeth uncorked the bottle it was a major projectile-launching POP [it had not been chilled so the pressure must have been intense] and they all went flying! Perfect! We got a good laugh and we were left alone for at least five minutes after that. Only one particularly bold bird returned at all. After that we came home happy and satisfied from a nice relaxing day with great friends!