Natsu Matsuri

I was up at Amu Plaza on Friday, and the children's play area had been removed to make room for some kind of Natsu Matsuri (Summer Festival) ceremony.



The two flower things on the stage are mikoshi (portable shrines). The brown box on the ground in front of the stage is a coin donation box. The altar at the far end of the stage seems to be for present donations or something.

I have no idea when the ceremony was set to take place. When I got back up here on Saturday, the stage and chairs were gone, and a 3-on-3 basketball game was in progress.

SPL Truck

Speaker trucks are a big thing in Tokyo, especially in Akihabara, where they just drive around to promote various TV anime shows. But, recently, Kagoshima has been the victim of this truck playing boy band songs. The website for Star Project Linx kind of seems to be for a host club, or something.



I don't care enough to get more detail on them. For the most part, everyone else on the streets just considers the truck to be an irritating source of noise.



I guess it's ok, if you like this kind of thing.

Buggy

Kyushu gets the weirdest bugs. I don't know what this is, it showed up outside the apartment building one night towards the end of July. It wasn't afraid of the light, and it didn't try to escape me when I got too close. It didn't like being flipped on its back, and didn't want to grab onto the leaf I was trying to use to scoop it up to move somewhere else.



I did eventually manage to get it on the leaf and moved over to some bushes. I don't know if this is a beetle, or some other kind of tree-based insect. Go out and multiply, little bug. Multiply.

Wicky's House Anisong Poster - July 14

The next poster advertising the anisong (anime theme song) sing-along night at Wicky's House. Yuki-hime likes to chill at Wicky's during the summer.

Small Adventure 64

I've run photos of speaker trucks before. These are the big semi trailer trucks with advertising of boy bands or TV anime on the sides of the trailer, and speakers blaring out music. The other night I was up at Streetcar Street, walking towards Donkey when I heard this really loud music coming my direction. I looked around for a truck (a few other people were rubber-necking, too) but I couldn't find anything. Eventually I spotted a younger guy riding a mama-chari (a cheap single gear bicycle with a basket on the handlebars). The bike was covered in red LED traffic cone lights, and he had a boombox cranked all the way up to 11 taped to the handlebars where the basket would go. His taste in music was horrible.

Georgia Gundam Cans

Georgia can coffee has tied up with Gundam to sell a limited-edition Gundam Emerald Mountain can series, for the 25th anniversary of the anime.



It's just this little artwork on the side of the can. If you have a smartphone, you can go to the Georgia website to get wallpapers of the can art. (I don't have a smartphone.) Of the 20-30 Coke vending machines I've found around the city, only two carry these cans, and it's only one slot in each machine. Not sure why it's such a small-scale campaign. Both machines sell the coffee for 100 yen per can, and it's not great coffee.



I'll probably stop buying it now.

Bon Odori Matsuri, 2019

It's Obon season again, when the ancestors come back from the dead to check up on how their descendants are doing. The main holiday/travel period is from Aug. 12 to 18. Honganji Temple had their Bon Odori (Obon dance) festival Thursday night from about 6 PM to 9 PM.



I had to work Thursday from 4 to 8 PM. Honganji is less than a 5 minute walk from the school, so I was able to swing by just before the dancing started.



Leading up to this, the schedule showed some PR stuff, and some school bands. The MCs spent a little time interviewing the musicians and singers.





Everyone else was just waiting for the music to start.



And then it started. The dance is primarily a slow circle around the tower, with a little hand waving.



I was going to get a glass of beer (400 yen), when one of the other revelers insisted on buying me a cup of shochu on the rocks (200 yen). That was nice of him. A little later, I had dinner waiting for me at home, so I left.



It was a nice night. Hot and humid, but at least the rain had stopped for the moment.