花火。

this morning my host sister's friend and her mother visited us and we baked several pastries together with eggs or sausages or cheese&ham or chocolate. they were really tasty. in the afternoon we first picked up my host brother from ballett class (he was the only boy in a room full of tiny young japanese girls in tutus which was quite cute) and then went to a big shopping mall. they had a disney store there and i spent a lot of money on stickers and pens and stuff. we also went to the mall's game center and my host family won a few dozens(!) of tiny cuddly toys (but also a huge micky mouse). afterwards we ate dinner, i had udon with tempura and green tea donuts filled with azuki beans. i really love the food here! (except pulpy meat)

i also found hobbes a new friend, the cat "jiji" from kiki's delivery service which i still haven't seen. yes, our family really is getting bigger and bigger! hobbes was happy to finally have found a feline fellow. there aren't many cats here in japan, let alone tigers. they have beautiful cranes and scary huge insects here instead. a few people have tiny dogs but we both really miss the alley cats!

on our way home we saw a little display of fireworks. my host parents stopped their car and waited and said they wanted to see the fireworks. because the few effects we had seen so far weren't that spectacular and because i was tired and had to wake up at 4am the next day i was quite annoyed but about half an hour later the real display of fireworks began and it was so beautiful and huge and almost scary! i tried to take pictures and videos but they just can't capture how great it was! if you ever go to japan, be sure to watch a hana-bi at least once!