Hi all! Rather than putting my non-personal pictures of Japan in my journal, I thought I'd post them here. I hope no one minds. (And please don't redistribute these pictures elsewhere. Thank you )

Anyway, this batch is from the Nebuta festival in Aomori city. This festival is pretty much the biggest in my prefecture and according to several sources, over 3 million people saw it a few years ago. You can read more about the Nebuta festival here on Wikipedia. But in a nutshell, the Nebuta are huge floats made from wire and paper. The floats are paraded through a section of Aomori city and anyone can join the parade as long as they have the proper attire. I saw the festival on August 2nd and unfortunately it was drizzling so the floats had to be covered with plastic. But it was still cool.


A poster for the festival. It lasts for about a week. On the last day the floats are loaded on to boats and towed around the harbor. I didn't see that, but I think next year I'll try to.

These are from a building called ASPAM. The floats are stored here during the parade. I went there before the parade began and was able to take pictures of some of the floats before the plastic was put on.



























These are from the parade route.




















Not from the Nebuta festival, but JR East had been putting up posters advertising the Pokemon decals they put on the bullet trains to celebrate the new Pokemon movie. It was the first time I had actually seen them.





I have pictures from my trips to Hokkaido,Tokyo Disneyland, and DisneySEA that I'll try to put up within the next week or two.

Trisha--lol! While it's not my absolute favorite picture, I really like the owl as well. It's such a contrast to the other floats.