Back from laziness

So I leave for a month and Blogger goes all clean-line-minimalist-trendy-sans-serif? The blog management is completely different looking. I thought I was on the wrong website when I went to write this post. My computer was so shocked by the change Explorer promptly froze for a full thirty seconds. Not a joke.

I suppose the confusion is only a fitting punishment.

I took a vacation from blogging. Between my last post and this one is a wide, empty, tumbleweed-filled expanse of great nothingness... at least that's what it looks like online. In the real world, Blake came home from deployment for about four weeks so, no offense, but I had better things to do.

Now he's gone. So, Blogger is my back-up date.

Second order of business: a huge, public apology to my mother. During the time Blake was home, I was a terrible daughter. I only emailed her a few times in a whole month and I am very sorry.  It won't happen again, even when Blake comes home in a handful of months. If I do not keep this promise, may I be run over by a runaway dump truck full of rocks and dirt and things.

And with that pleasant image, let me transition awkwardly to the weather.

Today, I can almost believe that fall is coming. I can almost believe that Japan has more to offer than amazing food and suicide-inducing humidity. It kind of feels like a trick, though. I'm keeping my washcloth in my purse anyway.

For now, though, I am enjoying the normal weather. I hung wash out to dry. All the AC units are off. All the windows in the house are open, bringing in fresh air, the voices of children speaking in a foreign language, and the ever pleasant, very soothing sounds of trains going by every 10 minutes.

So what happened during this blogging-hiatus?

Let's start at the very beginning.

I am gritting my teeth now because I wrote that sentence, then immediately began singing "Do-Re-Mi," (and picturing Julie Andrews and kids in curtains). I have a barely restrained urge to type out the rest of those lyrics. I won't. I won't do it. I really want to. But I won't.

Shout out to the French girls, who would join me in a rousing rendition of the entire Sound of Music show, were we all together in the same room.

I have a lot of pent up tangents from not blogging for so long. Forgive me.

The beginning is when Blake came home. For those of you who have not seen the Facebook pictures, let me share with you a little souvenir Blake brought home from cruise.

The Mustache. It made him look like his own twin. A creepier, eviler, less-hygienic version of himself. Yes, I hated it, but so did he. He shaved it off immediately after these pictures, and these pictures were taken about five minutes after we'd gotten home.

So, this blog space, currently being filled with more text, was where I was going to share pictures from Blake's port call in Thailand. I copied them off his external hard drive and onto a different external hard drive. He then took both of those hard drives with him back out to sea (along with my key ring that has both my house and car keys). Sometimes, two brains are not better than one.

So, Thailand pictures will have to wait. I'm doing an awful lot of apologizing.

Here is something I do have: pictures of a parade we went to.

One Sunday, Blake and I decided go to Harajuku and see what kind of costumed, wigged, cosplay people we could find. Answer: none. What did find was the annual Super Yosakoi, which is one of three festivals going on in Tokyo on the same weekend.

Remember my post about Omotesando? Beautiful, tree-lined, ritzy? Well that street was shut down to make way for group after group of dancers, each led by a truck with a singing, screaming man on top. Yes, I do mean singing and screaming. Note: the person who took this video catches them just at the end so the dance starts over at 0:40.

Behold:



There were dancing groups as far as the eye could see and at the end of the street, more hordes of dancers waited their turn. All the dances got to be similar after awhile. Waving arms, twirling costumes, big smiles and lots of sweat. It was a really hot day and most of these people were in full-on costume. There was probably no saving those costumes when they were through with them. I may be wrong, but I looked up the festival on my iPhone while we were there, and a schedule said this parade lasted from 12:00 to 4:00. Four hours. Let me put it in perspective.

If you go see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, it will be around three hours depending where you stand, and that's mostly just people in ridiculous costumes walking around waving, a gigantic herd of kids with white gloves doing over choreographed numbers, and the occasional lip-synced song. The dancers in this parade danced their asses off, up and down that street. Their enthusiasm was unrelenting and their sweat stains enormous.

Plus every group was led by a truck with billboards on the side, whoever sponsored that particular dance group. Perched atop every truck was a man with a microphone. He sang along to whatever song they were blasting out. Needless to say, Blake and I had no idea what they were saying, except for the word "Yosakoi."

We didn't stay long. It was so hot. Blake and I just stood there asking ourselves, "which one is going to have a heat stroke first?" People in this country really know how to put on a "show face."

So, we did a little shopping (two types of incense which, when lit, made my face feel as if someone punched me in both eyes, then dunked my head in a mixture of flower pollen and dog fur), and we ate modanyaki, which is noodles, with whatever you want, fried on a griddle. I had kimchee in mine. Blake had a bunch of different seafood. It was so delicious. A google image search of "modanyaki" does not do them justice. They kind of just lay there like gooey, slightly off-looking omelets. They are much more appetizing in person when you are sitting in front of the griddle watching all the ingredients being mixed and cooked.

The day was hot, delicious, and filled with new sights and sounds. A typical summer day in Japan.

We had many more adventures while Blake was home. I promise my posts will get more coherent (they can only get better from here). Stick with me. More to come.