{"id":1698,"date":"2017-10-20T20:03:51","date_gmt":"2017-10-21T04:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teamhadjes.com\/?p=1698"},"modified":"2017-10-24T16:55:16","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T00:55:16","slug":"day-fourty-one-farewells-fish-heads-and-festivities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.teamhadjes.com\/?p=1698","title":{"rendered":"DAY FORTY-ONE: Farewells, Fish Heads, and Festivities"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Sunday was our last Sunday attending Takamori Church. Because of our Japanese studies, we were able to sing out the hymns with the rest of the congregation. We didn’t know what we were saying but we were able to sound out the words and sing them… \ud83d\ude09 We brought a gift for the pastor and his wife, and Mom used Google Translator to address the congregation in Japanese and thank them for welcoming us.<\/p>\n

When the weather forecast said that we were going to have\u00a0one last day of summer, they meant it. The weather dropped ten degrees overnight, and all last week and this week, we have had rain- cold, windy rain. The rain was a strong drizzle today, so we decided to brave the cold so we could check out the Isehara\u00a0festival that was going on that weekend.<\/p>\n

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We saw mostly food stalls,\u00a0which we had fun checking out. We got okanomiyaki,<\/p>\n

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(These ones had hot dogs cut to look like octopus! :D)<\/p>\n

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yakisoba,\u00a0caramel churros,<\/p>\n

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chocolate\u00a0covered bananas (these were very popular, second only to the takoyaki stalls),<\/p>\n

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and some other candy that I am not sure what it was.<\/p>\n

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There were some other stalls that we looked at, but did not buy food from. One stall was carving meat from this\u00a0HUGE fish head. The head was approximately\u00a0as tall as my torso, and the eyeballs were about the size of the palms of my hand. (see umbrella and hamburger for size reference)<\/p>\n

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These stalls were selling squid… I think.<\/p>\n

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This was at a takoyaki stall. These are tiny octopus, smaller than my hand. I think each takoyaki ball got its own octopus.<\/p>\n

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Mom got a baked potato, Japanese style! This is how they cooked their potatoes:<\/p>\n

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After steaming, I think they fried the potatoes. The vendor gave you your potato, and you put on your own toppings. Some of the topping options were butter, corn, kimchi, and some pink dressing.<\/p>\n

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In addition to food, we all loved watching\u00a0some of the attractions. This float passed us, as we were walking down the street. I don’t know who these people were supposed to be, but their float was cool.<\/p>\n

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The taiko drummers were my favorite! It was amazing to watch how in sync they were! They even had a dance to step up to their drums.<\/p>\n