Today is Children's Day (子供の日), a national holiday in Japan that wraps up a series of holidays collectively called Golden Week. Fumie's folks got a special cake that we could all enjoy...

I think Anthony was with them when they picked up the cake, and they asked him what wish he wanted written.

I completely missed it at the time, but looking at these pictures now, I realize that the overall shape of the cake is that of a traditional kabuto samurai helmet. It's a symbol for boys that they grow up strong and healthy, and a small version is [...]

Japan's Golden Week holidays end tomorrow, so tonight roads and highways across the nation are jammed with people returning from vacations. News reports of 50-mile backups on major expressways are not uncommon. Unfun.

We avoided all the traffic by having our mini vacation on Awaji Island early, so the roads were empty both going and returning.

On the way there, we crossed the Akashi Straights Bridge (明石海峡大橋) -- the world's longest suspension bridge, though tonight it's the world's longest parking lot -- and while crossing it, I stuck the camera out the window for some flying(driving)-blind shots.

I wrote about [...]

In a comment on yesterday's post, Philz asked for a larger version of the lead photo on yesterday's post on "Yabusame" mounted archery. I assume that he meant the same photo in a larger size, but since one can get that by clicking through on the thumbnail, I'll interpret it as a request for a wider view, so there it is.

I think the tighter view from yesterday's post (repeated below) is more compelling, but perhaps less informative.

Continued here...

We went to a traditional "yabusame" archery rite today at the Shimogamo Shrine, part of the month-long "Aoi Matsuri" Festival, whose most well-known part is the Aoi Matsuri procession in the middle of May.

You can read about "Yabusame" on Wikipedia, but in short, this yabusame mounted archery involves an archer on a horse at full gallop running a 280-yard straight track with three small targets at equal intervals. The archer has but a few seconds between each one to grab an arrow, prepare it, aim, and shoot, and then must do it again two more times, all the while [...]

We're back from our short (two-night) trip to Awaji Island, about a two-hour drive south. The day started early so I'm glad to be home at a reasonable hour. On the way home, we stopped by a highway rest stop in the middle of nowhere, and were tickled to see a sign that says exactly what Fumie bids Anthony off to school with (as described on this post). We hadn't thought that such a sign would actually exist.

This was the last of the (only 800) pictures I took on the trip.