Stupid bad luck

 As mentioned a couple days ago, events are starting back up in Kagoshima, and my luck just is not getting any better. Last evening (Friday), I had a class in the school from 7 to 7:30 PM. Just as the lesson started, there was this series of loud, fast booms from outside the building. It quickly became pretty obvious that the city was shooting off some serious fireworks, but we couldn't see any of it from where we were (best guess is that the launch site was a quarter-mile away at waterfront park, where Dolphin Port used to be). The student wanted to ditch the lesson to watch the fireworks, but that wasn't really an option. I convinced him to wait until the lesson ended, but the display wrapped up right at 7:30, too. Sigh.

Afterward, I asked the owner of the school what the fireworks had been for, since I'd hadn't heard any advertising for it in advance. He told me that it was the city's way of showing appreciation for the staffs of the hospitals tending to Covid-19 patients. That's cool, but since the big August fireworks event had been cancelled this year because of Covid, I really wish I could have seen the one last night...

Happy Halloween

Going as a zombie.

Masked

Practice safe social witching.

End of the light

Kagoshima almost never gets mentioned in the national newspapers, except when the Sakurajima volcano has a major hiccup. so it was kind of a surprise to see "Kagoshima" show up in a recent headline on one of the online news sites. Turns out it wasn't for anything earthshaking, though.

The streetcar above is used primarily in October and November to advertise the upcoming Ohara dance festival (Nov. 3rd this year). According to the article, it's one of the oldest cars still in use, and is going to be retired after this.

Bright Chalk - American Beauty

It's been months since Bright has had new chalk art.

Things Are Picking Up

The last few weeks, events have been popping up that I normally would have wanted to attend. The first weekend of October had a beer, food and music event in Ten Park. I was walking through Tenmonkan when I ran into Wicky and his wife, Kana. They were carrying guitars and hand drums on their way to the park. Turned out this event had been running for a few days, and Wicky was going to be playing that afternoon. I turned around and tagged along after them, and discovered the event, which they also had last year. It was free, but masks were mandatory and attendees had to sign in their names and addresses for Covid tracking. Since I was slated for eye surgery two days after, I had to forego trying to get in to take photos.

I've been seeing posters for the big Ohara dance parade in November, too. Normally, I would expect Shochu Street to run the same weekend. Assuming that the crowds are going to be as thick in the past, I can't run the risk of contracting anything that could endanger my eye. So, yeah, things are starting to happen again, anyway.

Whiskey and Beer Exhibit

 

There's an exhibit running in Maruya Gardens right now by an artist, Hamachi Katsunori, who specializes in drawing bottles of alcohol in various settings. The artist and a female sales partner were in the room trying to sell the paintings, and that kind of put me off of taking pictures of the art. The cheapest works, which were smaller watercolor sketches, were in the $300 range. The bigger ones were $1,200. I didn't see any takers while I was there. According to his Instagram page, he's a local artist. I can see how his style would work for restaurant wall art, or food and wine magazine illustrations.

Some of the subjects.

From the doorway, I could see a projected video showing how the artist painted one of his subjects.

Twisted Wonderland Wafer Card

Found this wafer packet at Family Mart recently for 150 yen ($1.40 USD).

Fairly large wafer cookie, plus this plastic character card. The cookie was ok, but not really worth the money. The things I do for the blog.

Restaurant Chalk Art

"Come drink beer."

Kimetsu no Yaiba Poster Boards

 

New advertising boards up at Amu Plaza for the Demon Sword movie.

Dydo and Kimetsu no Yaiba

Dydo can coffee has decided to release an "original set" of Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Sword) can designs. I started seeing these at Family Mart a couple weeks ago, and then they showed up at 7-11. The difference in the way they are displayed is that 7-11 has all of the different characters lined up on a shelf so you can see them all at once, and pick the can you want to collect next, while Famima just has them in two slots of their refrigerator case, and you have to hunt through 20+ cans just to see what they have in stock. The coffee is sweet and creamered, and kind of tastes plastic. Not really recommended. 124 yen per can ($1.15 USD), including tax. The can says that there are three special designs that can only be found in vending machines, although I can't imagine wanting to put in the effort of trying to get all three characters at random like that.

Salaryman Kintaro Pamphlet

I found this pamphlet at one of the hospitals recently. It asks "What if Salaryman Kintarou was the president of Chuushou Kigyou" (small and medium-sized businesses). (I don't know if this refers to a specific company name in the manga, since I've never read it, or if it's just "a small business"). Either way, the story, for what it is, has one of Kintarou's employees complaining of various health ailments, but refusing to go to a hospital to find out what's wrong, and Kintarou berating the man for being stupid. The main point is that if the employee dies from something, it has a negative impact on company productivity, and that everyone that knows him will be sad.



In the end, the guy gets treated, and thanks Kintarou for being so concerned about the company's bottom line like that (I'm paraphrasing). Kintarou then tells the reader to go to the hospital for regular checkups.

Hedgehog Roll

 

There's a 100 yen ($0.95 USD) bakery shop in Tenmonkan that I visit sometimes. Recently, I found this "hedgehog" (hari-nezumi) roll, which had little pretzel quills, and a chestnut nose. Delicious.