This week is Silver Week here in Japan. Basically, Silver Week is what would happen if in the States they moved holidays around so that Labor Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and President's Day were on Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday. Several minor holidays in a row set up so that office workers get a 5 day weekend.

Because I haven't been able to find a job yet, we've spent Silver Week near to home, instead of heading to Kyoto or something, but we've still found some interesting things to do. On Sunday, we headed to Tokushima to go to a Stuff Swap, where I picked up some clothes and we got some books, then we went to eat at a hotel cafe called The Agnes for our one-year anniversary dinner. The food was decent enough, but the service was amazing and the bread they kept bringing was unbelievable.

Today, Tuesday, the two of us and one of the other Naruto ALTs, a girl from Portland, biked out to the Naruto German House to attend the German Festival. The festival itself was a bit disappointing, but we could have been there at a bad time. It was mainly food vendors selling German products. They were, however, giving away free samples, so I got to taste some German wheat beer, some mango sparkling wine, and a variety of snack foods. We also picked up a jar of bratwurst that we took home and cooked. Delicious! I never thought I'd have bratwurst in Japan.

After the German House, we biked a bit further to the big Shinto shrine in the area, Oasahiko. It was amazing. The tree the shrine is built around is gigantic and really interesting looking. The thing that sticks out the most, though, is the number of giant spiders we saw. They are everywhere and they are huge.

We have one day left of Silver Week, but we don't have any plans so far. However, we have plans for early in Octobor to head to Himeji, and possibly Osaka. Really, I'm out of things to say, since this post was mostly just to post some pictures!

Silver Week 2009 online photo album