Exploring Sano/Engrish Explosion

So today has been semi productive. I basically woke up, ate some breakfast, showered, put some laundry in the washing machine (it's been a couple hours and its still running, I hope it works hahah) and then hopped on my bike to explore Sano. Luckily today was only cloudy and not raining so my 3-5 hour bike exploration went pretty well. Below is a little video I complied from a bunch of clips I took throughout the day. I thought this would be easier than putting all these clips separetely.


Something cool about where I live is I live off of two highways kind of. It's funny because the two highways are same number as the ones I lived near growing up in Maryland and in College. 270 like Montgomery County and 50 like Salisbury.



I biked east of where I live and there's nothing really out there but I did found out that I live very close to Daimonji. Daimonji is explained below: Daimonji at Night:

Gozan no Okuribi (五山送り火), more commonly known as Daimonji (大文字), is one of the iconic festivals of Kyoto, Japan. It is the culmination of the O-Bon festival on August 16th, in which five giant bonfires are lit on mountains surrounding the city. It signifies the moment when the spirits of deceased family members, who are said to visit this world during O-Bon, are believed to be returning to the spirit world—thus the name Okuribi (送り火) (roughly, "send-off fire").

The origins of the festival are obscure, but it is believed to be ancient. Specific families have the hereditary duty of organizing all the logistics of the bonfires, and they spend many hours annually providing volunteer labor to maintain this tradition. Starting at 8PM, the giant bonfires are lit, each with a distinctive shape. Below is the picture I took of it from the bridge near me.

So let me explain what Engrish is for those of you who don't know, its English that Japanese people believes sounds correct, but its just not. After exploring I started to head back and hit up every clothes store I could find. I found so much engrish its not even funny, but it is.

More exploration to come tomorrow.