There are at least three main activities that occupy people in Japan during summertime:

1. Swimming at the pool or the beach

When I first got here, I was surprised to know that swimming pools and beaches are open only during specific periods in a year, i.e., July-August. Boohoo. In the Philippines, save for typhoon seasons, we get to enjoy the pool and the beach 365 days a year. And the waves there won’t look as if they were trying to eat you (see photo at Hasanuma beach below). 😀

Aya and Tatay running away from the giant killer waves! Taken in 2005.

During the one and only time we went to the beach, to our dismay we found out that it was just too crowded for comfort. And as you can see in the photo, the place wasn’t that great at all. And get this, everybody takes a “break” between 12 to 1 pm, and again sometime during mid-afternoon. As in, everybody gets their butts out of the water and waits for the announcement when it’s okay to resume swimming. How KJ is that?!!

2. Attend matsuri or festivals

Lots of dancing in the streets, beautiful floats, people chanting and drinking booze having fun. My favorite is buying food like chikin karaage (fried chicken) and furankufuruto (frankurter) at the stalls. The Tsukuba matsuri is held every year during the last weekend of August or first weekend of September. The giant floats, called “nebuta,” are quite impressive and are worth watching.

3. Watch hanabi, or fireworks
Hanabi = ?? = fireworks. “Hana” is flower, while “bi” is fire. My most favorite of all is the Tsuchiura Fireworks Festival, although it is held in October.

Actually, we don’t even have to wait for festivals to enjoy fireworks. We can do that right at our own frontyard. Here are some photos of Aya enjoying her Hello Kitty-inspired “lusis” fireworks. 🙂

I can’t imagine doing something like this if it wasn’t Christmas or New Year’s eve. Needless to say, doing this made me nostalgic all of a sudden. I just miss the times when I would have fun making the “watusi” pop like crazy and holding the “lusis” as it fires and ebbs away into oblivion.