Japan Trip: Day Four

Tuesday and Wednesday night was the "Obone" festival combined with the end of summer festival, which you might remember from Karate Kid II. For the Obone festival celebrates the return of the spirits of deceased ancestors to the the homes they had in mortal life. It was a long parade with lots of drums and flutes, and these parade floats that are pushed or pulled by kids from the local temple, and some ride inside playing drums and flutes.

Everyone in town turned out to watch, including these two little girls in their Sunday best.

Today and tomorrow I have off, so I took a short train ride to Yokahama to get Seth a shirt from the Hard Rock Cafe there (I got him one from Tokyo last year). The HRC is located in a building right next to the Yokohama Landmark Tower, which is the tallest building in Japan. It is 67 stories high, and I might have paid the $10 to go up to the top if it hadn't been raining.

I thought this was an interesting approach to controlling smoking during times when it is crowded on the train platform:

This afternoon I went to Enoshima Island because I found out there were some shrines in caves on the back side. Enoshima is about a 15 minute bike ride from our teaching venue. As I was approaching the walkway to the caves I saw this warning. Sounds like a good idea to me... (enlarge to read)

This is the causeway that leads to the caves. Cool view. I took video with a camcorder but don't have the firewire cable needed to download so I'll upload on my last entry for this trip.