discoveries

isnt life always much more fun when you run into the unexpected?

yesterday tom and i slept in till about midday after a huge day on saturday playing a bit of golf at the driving range, then taking part in the mito scavenger hunt, and then going to an all you can drink/eat escapade at the mito station beer garden.

so after we finally got out of bed and decided it was time to venture outside, it was already 3pm. we had grand plans to go to either the beach or the park for the whole day so we made do with our short afternoon

after swinging by starbucks for some free internet access (thank you to the open wireless connections of a random person who lives near starbucks) we walked down to the park.

mito has lots of parks. we discovered one amazing one in the scavenger hunt but it was a bit too far away for the amount of time we had left, so we went down to the park near the senba lake, which is equally as nice and big.

we set ourselves up on a rug and watched the crowds go past. in the distance we could see a festival cranking up (its festival season in japan at the moment) and it was interesting to watch it from afar.

then, all of a sudden, there was a huge boom! fireworks were going off left right and centre, to mark the opening of the festival. it was a huge shock becuase they were being set off from maybe only 20 metres away from us. we had seen some guy playing around with a box in the middle of the field earlier but it hadnt twigged until then.

so after all that excitement we thought we had better go check out this festival for ourselves. just as we arrived on the other side of the field, a taiko group started up. it turns out they are the famous "Mito-daiko" who i have been wanting to see ever since i got here. i was pretty excited and tom had never seen anything like this before in japan so it was very cool. they were very good and i think i will try and go to another of their concerts in the future.

and we found all of this by accident.

after that we walked to the 100 yen store, bought some bits and pieces, then tried to catch a bus home. eneded up on a bus that went the wrong way and had to walk home after all.

but it was a fun day.