Nothing

If you've been wondering why I haven't updated the blog lately, it's because there's pretty much nothing going on down here right now. Kagoshima is a long way from Tokyo, so we've had very little to do with the Olympics activities farther north, or with the increase in COVID cases in the big cities. BUT. For some reason, the city has mandated an early shutdown of eateries during Obon (Aug. 8th to 15th).

The big summer holiday period, Obon, is when most people return to their family towns to have ceremonies for their ancestors and other family members that have passed away. It's also traditionally a huge opportunity to travel to other countries. But, well, pandemic. So, most people can't even travel to other prefectures within Japan because of the travel restrictions. And now, it seems that in Kagoshima, at least, all restaurants, cafes and fast food joints have to close their eating areas by 8 PM pretty much for the rest of the month. And, take out orders end at 11 PM. I don't know how this affects bars, live music houses or movie theaters, but I'd assume that they have to close by 8 PM as well.

I haven't seen any advertising for free events in the city for weeks. None of the regular summer festivals have happened, from what I can tell. There was a short 15-minute fireworks display from the parking lot of the hotel at the top of the big hill next to my apartment last month, which was nice to watch, but I still have no idea what it was for. I went up to Amu Plaza this evening to see if they had anything going on for the week, and they literally had the tables torn down and the carpet rolled up. We'd been expecting typhoon #9 this weekend, and the Amu management rolled up the astro turf in the plaza in front of the department store to protect it from the rains and heavy winds that never showed up. We never get typhoons. They always break east and go up to Tokyo, or break west and smash into Kumamoto, Nagasaki and Fukuoka. Always.

Anyway. Nothing to report this week.