Daily at dusk, folks gather just a few blocks off the downtown shopping district for a little free entertainment courtesy of the local fountain. The show goes on for around 20 minutes; sit on the cement steps, relax, and enjoy watching waltzing waters lit up against the darkening sky.
Bordering the open field, a veritable lake from that morning’s rainstorm, around 40 tents were set up by vendors offering tastings. Another 30 or so stands were serving festival food such as fries, takoyaki, noodles, choco-bananas, and more. Spending 500 Yen ($5) on a commemorative glass allowed visitors to wander from booth to booth from noon until 6, requesting aka (red) or shiroy (white)…and when it was time to find a dry spot to sit and relax, there was a central tent with wine by the barrel—step right up and fill your glass. Grape juice for the kiddies, too.
Davin entered a grape-eating contest...
And people lined up for free samples from the grape ladies.
Free-flowing wine plus a slick muddy field presented a recipe for disaster—or something Woodstock-esque, perhaps—but the event remained relatively low-key. There were plenty of folks sloshing around sans shoes, and a trashed group of foreigners (from the U.S.? ‘Fraid so) creating a mini-scene by pig-piling onto a tarp and generally being obnoxious, but to balance the mood, an adjacent group of locals had spread out a full, fancy picnic complete with fondue.
We watched a variety of acts take the entertainment stage, including a steel-drumming group, a teenage rock band, middle-aged guys playing surfer tunes, and a synchronized dance troupe.
And when the sky darkened, we retraced our route home, arriving back in Shizuoka at 11:59—nearly the last train of the night :)
I’d previously visited Mochimune, but hadn’t taken the stroll north of the main beach to The Playground. Picnic lunch in tow, Davin, Jackson, and I found ourselves at the most spectacular play area I’d ever seen: showy, multifaceted, dangerous. 
We sat on a grassy hill and watched the hordes of little pirate wannabes clamber around the ship, swing back and forth on ziplines, and build sandcastles mortared with water from the concrete wading pool and waterfall. Such an elaborate amusement in such a small town.
On a late afternoon a week later, our destination by bus was Miho Beach, in the opposite direction—on a peninsula northeast of Shizuoka City. Less kid-friendly and more a spot to enjoy the whispering pines and take in an ocean sunset, Miho offers a few forested trails as well as a beach view of Mt. Fuji if the weather abides.
The slightest outline of the mountain, center:
And while Mochimune is BYO, Miho boasts a row of snack stands serving up soup, sweets, and oden (a disgusting regional specialty which basically amounts to soaking chunks of mixed meats and root vegetables in the same vat of liquid until every item is soggy and uniform in taste). The mango was a tasty choice, however, and the sunset, though filtered through the twisted pines lining the beach, mighty fine.
On the 12th, the sky was dull and sprinkles fell throughout the morning. Nevertheless, opening ceremonies commenced with a full-school march onto the field, the flag raising, the National Anthem, and several speeches of encouragement from the school principal, the president of the PTA, and the leaders of each of the teams the student body was divided into: red, blue, and yellow.
The competition commenced with a zillion different track events: sprints, distance running, and various relays. Hands down, the best part of this portion was that the music teacher had created a soundtrack for the races (lots of peppy marches and battle tunes—think "William Tell Overture"); the switch to the sound system was flipped on at every crack of the starting gun and faded out with every cross of the finish line. Along with the background music, some ridiculously cute students were giving race commentary along the way: So-and-so's in first! He/she sure is fast! Good luck, so-and-so who's falling behind!
After relays came the team events, where homerooms competed against each other in the three-legged race (except an entire homeroom of about 30 students was tied together instead of just a pair of students...so many twisted ankles, scraped knees, and ripped track pants during practice for this), and the group jump rope.
After lunch, spectating parents were incorporated into a couple events, including a game where teams had to try and sink as many bean bags as possible into a basket, raised high on a bamboo pole, in a given amount of time.
I didn't quite understand the scoring system, but there was a nail-biting lead-up to the final score display (a drum roll and cymbal crash with the posting of each digit), and the red team came out on top. Made sense since their team had a whole extra homeroom (yeah, I was rooting for yellow)...
And then it was time to go home and enjoy the weekend, including the following Monday off to make up for having to go to school on a Saturday. Nice.
I was glad to be a smaller, laid-back school for this occasion, since I've heard Sports Day competitions at other schools can be ultra-serious: months of training, drilling, honing team cheers...and lots of tears from those who don't win on the big day. It might have been cool to see some of the more elaborate contests larger schools include, but I'm all for seeing everyone still smiling on the way home.
As our ferry approached the island, the dreary weather lent a mysterious air to the steep green mountain’s temple- and shrine-bedecked foothills. Miyajima, the summit of which is Mt. Misen, carries a long history of being worshipped as a divine island.
The area near the ferry terminal is a bit less historically-oriented, however. We passed food and souvenir shop after shop, briefly dropping into Hello Kitty Miyajima before resuming our search for a certain oversized kitchen implement.
I should note that this island is also home to a seemingly rampant population of tame deer. Everywhere we walked, they were hanging out, eating maps, snatching food from visitors. Despite the warning signs, this lady fed a deer and of course it then followed her everywhere, nudging for more—she was so mad. And deserving.
We left the winding shop-lined streets and scavenging animals for the wooded hillside and the temple Senjo-kaku, constructed in 1587 as a space for the monthly chanting of Buddhist sutras in order to console the souls of the dead. It’s huge (over 1,300 square meters), and otherwise known as the Hall of 1,000 Tatami Mats. The neighboring five-storied pagoda was built in 1407.
Large paintings inspired by the temple’s natural surroundings were displayed in the rafters of the hall, and visitors wandered, stopped to write prayers and wishes on small wooden spatulas, and sat safe from the sprinkles and gazed out over our next stop below—the Itsukushima Shrine.
Built out over the water—at least when the tide is high—is a group of colorful buildings, first constructed in 593 and connected by a series of boardwalks. The famous Torii gate seems to float in the sea, except during low tide when the water recedes and visitors can walk around the sandy inlet and out to the gate.
Loving the Third Best View...
Lastly, we walked the decorated grounds of Daisho-in, a Shingon temple named for Kobo Daishi, who established the island as a holy site and lit a fire, said to have been burning for 1,200 years, on the mountain’s summit.
Back in Hiroshima, we ate Thai and visited an Irish pub chockfull of Australian military personnel; we also ran into a group of three former English teachers in the process of cycling the length of Japan, from Hokkaido to Okinawa.
Our final day in the city was spent between two museums: the Hiroshima Museum of Art (focusing mainly on French masters) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (showing a great photography exhibit by Tsuyoshi Ozawa, in which he met with women in different cities around the world and in each place, asked the woman for a local recipe, bought all the ingredients for the recipe, assembled them into a gun, photographed the woman wielding the vegetable weapon, then disassembled the gun and cooked and enjoyed the meal with the woman and company). We caught a good view of the city from a hill on the southeast side of town, then it was back to the station and back to Shizuoka.
