Best Buddhist statues and Musashi-Koganei's matsuri

Greeings from the Land of Ew Lemme Get You a Bucket for All That Sweat.

Our cruise this evening was cancelled because of thunderstorms (laaaame), so you folks get a post instead.  Huzzah!  (I guess.  If you like posts.  This post is mostly pictures because I am tired and don't want to type anymore things today.)

FLASHBACK TIME:

On Friday we once again had pick-your-own-course field trips, and I wound up going to the Tokyo National Museum, because I love the TNM.

NEWSFLASH: These are still my favorite Buddhist statues ever.

SO MUCH ATTITUDE.

Afterwards I went out to dinner with some of my classmates.  First we went to a super sketchy izakaya that was basically the biggest rip-off ever (also, they had a "sashimi" section on their menu, but the only sashimi they actually had was horse and chicken WHAT EVEN), and then everyone realized what a spectacular bad idea the izakaya was and instead went to get okonomiyaki, which was an excellent idea.

Saturday!  A couple of us went to a festival in Musashi-Koganei, which is a suburb of Tokyo.

It was a dancing festival, which meant that there were lots of groups parading through the street and dancing the "awaodori," which is literally "the bubble dance."

The combination of low light + rain + fast-moving people meant that a lot of my pictures turned out kind of like this.

P.S. Yes, it was raining.  Thank you, weather.  You're so helpful.  I, of course, forgot my umbrella, because the weather forecast said it wouldn't rain.

No, blogger, I am not going to add a caption.  Shh.

The best part of any summer matsuri is the inevitable small children in yukata.

I think this was about the point that the thunder and lightning started.

These people are dancing IN THE RAIN.  I hope you are impressed.

It started raining so hard that I had to cross to the other side of the street and stand under an overhang.

I crossed about ten minutes after all my other classmates, because they care a lot more about getting wet than I do, and also I was so busy taking pictures that I didn't notice that it was pouring rain.

Meanwhile, still lightning-ing and thundering.

And then lightning came crashing down directly over our heads (seriously, I think it hit a building in the vicinity) and the festival came to a screeching halt and everyone fled.

So that was the end of that.

OH WELL.

We did wind up going to Saizeriya for dinner, which is "Italian" food and is really cheap, which I guess makes up for the fact that it isn't really Italian food at all.

...the rest of the recaps will come later, when I don't have class in the morning.
HAHA, NO CLASS ON SATURDAYS?  WHAT UNIVERSE DO YOU LIVE IN?
*lies on the floor dramatically*