Despite my ‘best efforts’ I’m afraid I didn’t post this past July. For the two or three of you who actually keep tabs on this blog, I’m sorry. I’ll have two posts for you this month! Needless to say, things have been quite busy these past few months. Come to think of it, things have been quite busy since last April.

That being said, this year’s Obon vacation was certainly a welcome one. Although I wasn’t able to dance this year, I had a really great time visiting the festival on the first a second evenings. The first evening I went out with three of my coworkers. We ate at a small, out of the way ‘izakaya’ and had a really nice dinner followed by dance… followed by drinking. It was really nice to actually be able to watch and experience the festival as an observer rather than a dancer. I must admit however that I did feel as though I should have made the extra effort to dance this summer. Definitely next year. I’ve updated the photo gallery with some pictures from those two nights; one night with the staff, and the other with Mari-chan.

I’ve also another post in the works regarding a three-day trip I took to visit a friend of mine in Tottori. I’ll have that post up as soon as I can muster the energy to reformat the pictures. I hope everyone is doing well!