A wish of the stars for no rain

Tanabata, the festival of the star-crossed lovers who can only meet once a year if the skies are clear, was last weekend but for the second year in a row, it rained... But we braved the rain, we being myself, Kevin, Sho (Kevin's friend) Lena and Stuart (our new Otsuki gaijin friends) and Chelsea, Mershon and Kasia. Our little group first got split up so the girls and I ended up going to the temple in Asakusa. It's such a beautiful temple for a city and we strolled around and admired the wishes hung on bamboo trees, purified in incense and collected on our fortunes which were all horrifically ill-omened. Not wanting anything to do with bad luck, I tied my two the railing that's supposed to keep the fortune pinned there and abandoned it.

After some serious getting lost we found ourselves on a street lined with tanabata decoration! Took lots of picture of colourful ornament, everything from origami foxes and cranes, to little bags of paper fishes, ribbons and spirals, and of courses wish of which I wrote mine at the end and hung it on a very damp spring of bamboo. It was lovely~

As it got dark we all headed back to the west side of Tokyo for dinner at this amazing restaurant with best honey mustard chicken burgers ever and a warm brownie with cookies and cream ice cream for dessert. It was funny because last time we were there (only a week before after Kevin and I wrote the Japanese N5 test on Canada day) the waitress saw me so excited about the brownie but I was too full to eat it. Well she was there again this time and remembered me! What followed was just a long train ride home and then bed. ^_^

So Sunday, I didn't have much on the agenda but Laura texted me and told me about a party that the Otsuki English club ladies and Tommy were having. I was told to bring my yukata and on a very rainy morning I wandered out to the street to be picked up and driven to the outskirts of Otsuki where we had the most wonderful afternoon. Luckily the downpour broke for the party was set to take place in the garden. We were dressed in our yukata, ate some food inside and then moved out to the garden where the most amazing thing happened! A water slide made of halved bamboo was set up and cold soba noodles, baby tomatoes, cucumbers, cherries, quail eggs and orange slices were dropped down it only for us to catch them with chopsticks and eat them! It was amazing! That's how I want all my food served from now on! Then we helped make mochi by pounding the warm damp rice into a sticky paste, and wandered about the little garden before finished the day with writing our wishes and signing a tanabata song. It was the perfect little festival!

So next weekend is the beach, hoping for good weather. A long weekend and then only one more week until Canada~