Hi! Long time no see! Thanks for checking this, and I should be doing a few more updates soon because my time in Fukuyama is ending and soon I'll be moving to a town near here and then going to England for a two week vacation (!).
Anyway, last weekend we went to the annual Sake Matsuri (Festival) in Saijo, a small town near Hiroshima. Apparently the festival attracts 200,000 people every year, and it was pretty crowded. We arrived a little after 10 and spent the first part of the day wandering through cool old sake breweries and trying a lot of free samples. We had one of my friend's students as a guide, and he was really into sake, so that was a big help. We stayed about six hours just looking at sake breweries, trying food and sake (even sake ice cream!), and then sitting for a while to recover from the drinking and wandering.
The first picture is my boyfriend, Mark, our friend, Paul, and our guide for the day, Shintaro, with sake cups made from bamboo. The next shot is a display with flowers and sake bottles, and then some people testing the temperature of the sake they were about to serve. The last one is me and my co-worker, Chris, with a raccoon mascot.
Thanks for reading!
Cate
