I came across this poster in the station telling people how not to act on a train…
For the other passengers please refrain from:
1) Sitting with your legs open, crossed, or extended 
2) Listening to music loudly
3) Putting on makeup
4) Eating or Drinking
I went to see the Kawagoe festival… well see the festival and pull sweet potatoes out of the ground with my bare hands. Kawagoe is a city in Saitama famous for 2 things, its festival and sweet potatoes, so I got do see both on the same day. The festival was extremely crowded. A large area of the city is used in the festival and the entire area is packed with people, just getting around takes a lot of time and pushing. They all come to see the “dashi” which are the big tower looking things that are pulled though the streets. I too saw the dashi, and ate the festival food, but the thing I really came for was the ‘imohori’ or the digging up of potatoes. Getting through the crowd and seeing the festival took longer than expected, so when we finally arrived at the farm it was mostly dark. However, the old lady took us out anyway and we got to play in the dirt searching for potatoes for a while. It is really fun.
Many many people
A ‘dashi’
He was telling me that his dog was special
The 3 of us also took a trip to Nikko to see Toshogu shrine and so on. Since the last time I came the famous bridge’s restoration was finished, so I enjoyed looking at that. We also did the typical pose in front of the monkeys, and saw all the major sights. There was still a little time left as well so we went on a little hike to finish off the evening.
The following day, Ken, Takeshi and I went to Kamakura. We went to the giant Buddha, ate some sweets, went to Hasedera temple, washed our money for good luck, ate some more sweets, and went to Hachimangu shrine.
After 3 years, my friend Ken finally came and visited. Although having family in Japan he really hasn’t been here very much so we went all around to all the touristy areas. The first place we went was Yokohama with his cousin Takeshi. It has been a while since I’ve seen Takeshi as well.
If only I had a car called the ‘Naked’. The things I would be able to come up with…
The final day with the parents was spent taking a walk around the Tama Zoo, which was followed with a nice sukiyaki dinner. It had been 2 and a half years of not seeing my parents and in that time they havent changed a bit. I wonder if they think I have though?…
As my mom wanted to go hiking one day, I took her to Mt. Takao. It was a nice day and we had a nice hike. On the way down we also went to the monkey park and saw some monkeys.
