Anyway, we are kind of lucky in Japan, when it comes to some things, perhaps not a lot of space, but plenty of fun stuff to do. It kind of surprised me when I first came to Japan, that you could walk into any supermarket and pick up a nice big bag of fireworks for $10 or $20, now we are not talking your birthday cake sparklers, although they are nice too, we are talking rockets, fountains, mouse fireworks, all kinds of crazy things. Its a very Japan summertime tradition, to pick up a bag of fireworks, head down to the nearest park, river or beach and just go nuts with the fireworks for a few hours. I can’t imagine never not doing it.

Anyway, we took a little trip the other week and since we were not heading down to the park, we went for the handheld fireworks, they still pack a bit more of a punch than the average old sparkler.

The Akashi bridge, supposedly the longest suspension bridge in the world ( well if there isn’t a longer one yet )

The back of the ferry.

A little know secret, one of the best ways to travel in Japan is by ferry. Lots of space, toilets with a view, drinks, food, fresh air. you can even lay down and go to sleep. We took the ferry from Takamatsu back to Kobe port, about 3 1/2 hours, but a great trip. for only ¥1500.

While we were in Shikoku, we had a big family dinner, with the extended family, uncles etc. As per Japanese tradition and especially in the countryside, its very common to make an occasion of things and order massive lunch boxes. This was my lunch box, and I can tell you after I was rolling around on the ground full and too afraid to move, I still had half more go….. and these things were ¥8000 yen each/……

Out of focus, but you get the idea. lots of people waiting for a train ( Okayama, I forgot that many people lived there )

A great fried chicken lunch at a little place on the back streets. ( tip. always go to the back streets to eat, much better food )

looking across the river at the dome.

So other than all that baby stuff, We had my mum come and visit, so there were trips here and trips there. and a bit of sleep in between. I hadn’t been to Hiroshima for a while, but It was still the same Hiroshima when I got there. full of tourists ( and me for a day ). You could almost forget what happened there, if you didn’t take the trip the the A-bomb Museum.

Been a while since I have written anything on here. Well, not much you can do when a baby is thrown into the mix; so to speak. You soon find that all that time you had to do something “”nothing time”" disappears into a black hole… Well not really mostly changing nappies (diapers).

Maybe even better was this sermon he gave a few years ago at the funeral of MLK’s widow Coretta Scott King. Listen to the part where the rhyme loving black pastor blasts one of the four presidents who attended the service.