A busy couple of days!

This past Sunday we went to the island on Miyajima to see the fireworks. Their fireworks show is the most popular in all of Japan. One of the teachers from my school and her friend took Scott and I there. We got to walk around, eat a great dinner, and watch fireworks. The fireworks lasted about an hour, but half way through we needed to be on the ferry back because if we weren't we might not make the last ferry since there were SO many people. We got to see most of the second half from the ferry. They were so spectacular. Miyajima is the island which you can see the famous floating shrine. If you look at our picture you can see it.
On Monday we didn't have anything planned. We were just sitting up in our apartment when we hear music downstairs. We went outside to the park across the street and our landlord and family we hosting a traditional celebration for the Japanese holiday that honors the dead. They were so excited when they saw us. They started giving us food and drinks. They even got Scott to join in the on dancing! We got to meet a lot of our neighbors. Everyone was speaking Japanese to us a mile a minute! We watched them do traditional dancing, drum beating, and of course Karaoke! At the end of the night they gave us bags of crackers, candy, brown sugar, and beer. What a combination!