Mikasa Park

On Saturday, I ventured out of the relative safety of my immediate work/hotel area, and on to the streets of Yokosuka...

I cannot fly. This was a pedestrian walkway.

Across the bay was a park, that I had someone point out to me. It looked quiet and green; and just the kind of place that I could easily spend some time people watching or reading. As a bonus, there were a number of restaurants that would be along the routes I was taking to get there, so I could grab lunch afterwards.

When I arrived, it was very clear that something was up. Something... delicious.

OMG Festival! 

I still don't know what the occasion was - but Mikasa park was full of people... and performers... and food stands. And each food stand easily had two people screaming at the top of their lungs; presumably about how their food product would beat the neighboring booth's food product at a wrestling match. 

Sunday: A video of some of the children dance groups...

There was a large stage that had music groups performing throughout the day. I grabbed some meat on a stick, and caught some live music. I didn't understand much other than some of the the emcee's formalities when they were seeing groups on and off stage. When the one singer switched over to English for a verse, I had about a two second brain flair/flop where I was thinking "holy crap! Japanese is finally clicking for me!"... after which I realized that I had no such revelation, and it was they who had switched languages.

 There is nothing but beautiful, jagged stone edges.

To get out of the sun, I grabbed some melon flavored ice, and headed to a quieter part of the park. The large portion of this area was a shallow pool, surrounded by stone water features and walkways. It was the kind of jagged architectural beauty that would get covered in rubber bumpers and have the water drained, had it been in America. I sat and soaked it all in, and reflected on how much more an enriching places this was then any given lifeless, sanitized park in the US. 

When I left, I saw tons more water features along the roads. Had I been glued to my cell phone, I would have fallen in on more then one occasion. I suppose that is one passive aggressive way of getting people to pay attention to your landscaping...

Click here for all the pictures!