Whew.

Busy, busy, busy! But thank God it's finally over now!

Annie and myself all dressed up for hanabi

My friends and I went to hanabi last Saturday. Hanabi is the summer fireworks festival in Japan. We went to the one that was held in the water near Yamashita Park. Oh my God, there were so many poeple in the Yamashita Park/Minato Mirai area. I have never seen so many people in my entire life! There's supposed to be almost 500,000 people who go to that affair every year. Now, just imagine that number!

As expected, the fireworks were amazing. However, there was this big-ass ship docked right in front of where we were staying, so we couldn't see the fireworks leave the ground. That's ok, though, we could still see them up in the sky. Nevertheless, we kept on wishing that ship would just sink. :P We all wore a yukata to the hanabi, by the way (quite a number of Japanese people do that). :)

Saturday was also when Annie's parents arrived from the States. Her mom is gonna stay for two weeks, her dad, a week. I went to Kamakura and Enoshima with them yesterday, and they are two of the nicest people I have ever met!

The Great Buddha of Kamakura

It was my first time to go to Kamakura, and it was beautiful (don't ask me, I just didn't get the chance to go in the past). For those of you who don't know, Kamakura lies about 30 minutes in the south-west of Yokohama and was an old capital of Japan. It's where a huge Bronze statue of Buddha that was built in the 13th century stands to this day, withstanding a tidal wave that destroyed a temple surrounding it in the 15th century, and the Great Kanto quake of 1923 that only destroyed its base (that has been fixed and is now designed to make the Buddha just sway in case of another strong quake). We also went to the Hase Temple in Kamukura. It was just so beautiful with its amazing gardens, and the altars were so majestic.

Kaikōzan Jishōin Hase-dera, one of the great Buddhist temples in Kamakura

The sunset from Enoshima

After that, we went to Enoshima, a tiny rock of an island that lies south-west of Kamakura. It's connected to the main land by a long bridge. There were no beaches, but up at the top of the island, there's a shrine, and an observatory where you can see all around you. They have this sunset deck, and since we went there in the afternoon, we were able to catch the sunset at that place. What was more, just a little to the side of the sun setting was Mount Fuji. It was amazing.

Today, I had my oral exam in Japanese. We had it here at the dorm because we planned to have lunch together with our teacher, Ito Sensei. It was great having lunch with sensei. She's very nice and I'm so greatful for all the things she's done to help us with our stay here. I made adobo, April made a kinda Japanese rice, and our other classmate, a Chinese girl we call Shu-san, made a Chinese dish with eggplants. It was all good. I was so full afterwards. ^^;

And now, two weeks to go till we go home. What's next? Cleaning and packing. Ugh.

adobo - a Filipino dish cooked with meat that has been marinated in soy sauce and vinegar

yukata - summery, Japanese kimono made of cotton