Last Sunday, April 18th, Soleil Provence, together with 260 volunteers, celebrated Earth Day with it’s 2nd Beach Clean-up in Kugenuma Beach, Fujisawa. The clean-up started at 11:00am and ended at 1:30pm.

The volunteers were formed into groups and were scattered along Kugenuma beach. In this photo, Enoshima is seen in the background.

A volunteer bringing a plastic bag with beach litter is seen in this photo.

This is the picture after the collected debris are gathered all together.

And then the segregation…

And the counting…

In total, the volunteers collected 45 bags or 130 kgs of beach litter.

The whole experience was fun. Looking forward to the next clean-up in fall.

Here’s a short video clip by Bob of podcast Chocolat.

Fujisawa beach cleaning (Soleil Provence) from chocolat on Vimeo.

The annual Kawasaki Halloween Parade this year was held on October 31st. It is said to be one of the biggest Halloween parades in Japan. It was my second time to see the parade and I’m still quite impressed with the participants. Their costumes were amazing. They can described as either ‘kawaii’ or ‘kowai’.

In Japan, ‘kawaii’ means ‘cute’, and ‘kowai’ is ’scary’. (Be careful when you try to use them. You don’t want to get yourself embarrassed after mistakenly saying ‘kowai’ to a cute little Japanese kid, instead of saying ‘kawaii’).

The Mario Family. Kawaii ne~!

Screams. Uwa~, kowai~!

HEAD, HEad, head Yeah, it looks kowai, but it has some kawaii-ness. :p

The mummy is belong to us! The baby is so kawaii~~ ^_^

Zoombie chick. I’m gonna cut your head off if you say she’s kawaii.

Sweet Butterfly. Hands off, humanz. She’s mine. Kawaii ne!

Tanabata was originally about a Chinese love story of a princess and a cowherd being separated by the king.  Traditionally in present-day Japan, people celebrate Tanabata by writing their wishes on colorful, small strips of paper called tanzaku…

…and hang them on bamboo branches…

The streets are decorated with huge colorful  hanging lanterns which kids enjoy watching…

…especially at nights when these lanterns are being lighted.

This was during the Tanabata Festival in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa. This is the biggest Tanabata festival held in the Kanto Area. The most famous one is held in Sendai.

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