May 30 , 2003 - page 2

Saturday I went out to eat with my friends to a local Chinese restaurant. One of my friends, Fumi Ito, works there and we let her take care of the ordering since she knew the menu best. We dined “family style” and that means ordering several dishes and then sharing them. Fumi’s expert choices made for a delightful meal. I tried several new dishes and I liked all of them. And since we were dining with an employee, the owners gave us free desert. Score!

After supper we headed off to the Hotaru Matsuri, or Firefly

Festival. The festival was held along the Ichinosakagwa River, which I visited a few weeks ago. The festival reminded me of a typical county fair with its many food vendors and “impossible to win games” with their cheap prizes. I fell victim to the swindlers, and was conned into playing a fishing game. The scene was funny because here I was, nearly 20-years-old, playing the game alongside five- and six-year old kids.

The goal of the game was to catch one of the many live goldfish swimming in a tank. To do so you had use a small dish—the only catch was that the dish was made from an ice