Tanabata Festival

Last Tuesday a few of us went to the Shitennoji Temple in Osaka to check out the Tanabata festival. Both the temple and the festival are well over a thousand years old, and it's pretty amazing to think that people today still honor the traditions of so many generations before them. We wrote our wishes and tied them up with all the rest, and walked around to look at all the gates and belfries around the temple. We planned to come back after dinner to watch the burning of all the wishes to send them up to the stars, but we came back too late. It was slightly disappointing to miss the end of the festival, but we enjoyed our time at the temple nonetheless.

We chose this place for dinner without knowing what it was

We were intrigued by the shovels above the door, so we decided to give it a go

Turns out it was some sort of silly chain/kiddie restaurant. The decor was loosely themed around the old American West.

The food ended up being not too great, but the place was bizarre and hilarious so it was worth it for the experience

The restaurant's only alcoholic beverage was a really weak, sweet shandy, so we chose a random bar on the way back to the temple for some after dinner drinks

It ended up being a pretty expensive place that mostly specialized in whiskey

I went with this frozen drink that had strawberries, chocolate liqueur, and milk. It was basically a strawberry milkshake so I was happy, aside from the 1200 yen price, yikes!

Of all the drinks she could have ordered in this Japanese bar, Lily decided on a margarita. Needless today she wasn't a huge fan of it in the end. (Don't worry, I helped her finish it :)

By the time we made it back to Tempozan it had been about four hours since our crappy dinner, so we had a second dinner in town. Wahoo!

We might have had another drink or two also. Whoops! Lily's got that selfie face down pat

This last shot was taken a couple nights ago on the way home after work. We usually take a ferry to and from work, but the last one home is at 8:30, so if we're at work until 8:30 or later, we have to ride our bikes back across a bridge. There's an amazing view of the Osaka skyline on the bridge, and that view and ride home is a consistent source of the "Oh my god, I'm living in Japan, what is my life" feeling I get every so often. It's one of the best feelings I've ever had, and I really hope I still get that feeling often nine months from now. As a good friend of mine in school once said, "Feelings are sick, yo."