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.

Sometime ago I received my very first award since I started blogging. This is the Thinking Blogger Award, courtesy of Gypsy and Dimaks. Thanks a lot, guys. I am truly honored. 🙂

I’m now returning the favor and will now bestow this award on five other people.

Here goes!

Shai Coggins – who hasn’t heard of her by now? A highly creative, awesome mom-blogger-enterpreneur. She will always be an inspiration to all bloggers out there. I serendipitously stumbled on her blog while in search of a recipe for chicken sopas. I’ve been hooked ever since. 🙂

Annamanila – now you are truly multiawarded! How many awards have you received already? And here’s one more! Indeed, we are so blessed to have you in our blogosphere. Truly you have a drawing power with your words.

Frances – an amazing writer, her posts are insightful and very engaging. I believe that hers is one of the top emerging blogs in the Filipino blogosphere nowadays. She recently picked up my thoughts on scientists learning to communicate effectively and expounded on it with such verve and passion in an entire post of her own.

BW – one of the unique bloggers out there who could write about anything under the sun, and engage readers to discuss IDEAS. I could never forget our interesting discussion with Dimaks about life on other planets and Carl Sagan’s philosophies. Unfortunately for us, he frequently hibernates from blogosphere to attend to his more demanding offline activities – but when he does come back, he usually does this with a vengeance. 🙂

And the last but not the least (oh, why do I have to give out only 5 instead of 50?):

Senor Enrique – winner of the 2007 Philippine Blog Awards for Photoblog of the Year. He truly deserves the Thinking Blogger Award, not only for the photos, but for his insightful description of people and events in Manila. Take in his luxuriously rich and vivid photos, but also don’t forget to take time to read his very perceptive observations.

Ok guys, with the exception of Annamanila, I don’t know if you’ve already been given this award before. But if you haven’t, then you know what to do. Pass it on. 🙂

Update: I would just like to add that this happens to be my 200th post. What an appropriate opportunity to mark the occasion. Oh boy, I never thought that I’d get this far. But…here I am! Thanks to all who’ve been patiently reading my posts. Kore kara mo yoroshiku ne. 🙂

Natsu da! Matsuri da! I missed Aya’s natsu matsuri (= summer festival) at the daycare this year. I was in China then. This happens to be one of their major activities, so I’m so sorry to have missed it. Inspite of my initial misgivings, I did have fun last year when I attended it for the first time. And it even rained then, so most of the activities were confined indoors.

Fortunately, Aya’s Tatay and Lola were there to participate in the event, and gladly took pictures and videos so I could at least see what I’d missed. 😉

Here are some of the photos they took:

Aya and Lola pose outside with Aya’s classmates (the two girls). The other adults are parents of one of the girls.

Aya proudly wore her new yukata (= light Japanese kimono, traditionally worn during summer) which I bought for her before I left. It’s red – but of course! I’ll make her wear it again when we attend the “real” summer festival organized by the city of Tsukuba this coming August 25/26.

Actually, somebody suggested that I buy a similar outfit for myself – although I’m sure it would be much more expensive than children’s! But I also heard that there are some cheap ones being sold by Uniqlo nowadays. So hmm, I’m definitely considering it. Anybody out there who wants to lend me their yukata for a day? 😀

Here’s Aya giving the “peace” sign while watching the parade. Thank goodness for the good weather! At least now they could perform the activities outside.

I’ll post the video next time.