Mie - Day Two

We had a bit of a sleep in and Hiro had some work to do at the office so we hung out & played with Rin & surfed the net. I sat on the couch with my feet up.
When Hiro returned he took us to the Ise shrine markets which we found out later were just across the river from one of the biggest shrines in Japan. At the markets we got to be front row at a display of Taiko drumming. Very very loud & intense. It was excellent & we got goosebumps.
The drummers were really getting into it especially the girls. It was very much like a Maori war chant. Like a haka. Mick videoed it thank goodness.
We then had a bit of a stroll around the market shops which were designed to be like old Japan. We bought our lucky cat statues at the lucky cat statue shop which had every variation of the lucky cat you could imagine.
If the left paw is up it means to bring people & the right paw up means to bring money.
We were tempted to buy about 50 of the right paw ones. We settled on one of each.
The toy shop was pretty cool too as it sold older style toys like tin toys & wooden tops.
Once again I could have spent a small fortune on very cool tin toys & art & kawaii coin purses.
We went down the steps and walked a way down the river which was very shallow but very clear. It was lovely. We looked around some of the ceramic & art shops then stopped to have a really refreshing bowl of shaved ice with green tea syrup. It was really good.
As we were going back the Taiko drummers started up again but this time with a girl on the flute & a girl on these hand cymbols. This time the theme was more fun than serious.
With Rin up on Mick's shoulders we left the markets & hit the fireworks shop that seemed to be run by two old ladies about 100 years old. Mick was like a kid in a candy shop. The old lady added up our purchases on an old abacus.
Next stop was to another of Mick's favourite Japanese places... "Workmen store" (like RSEA at home). Mick purchased about 9 pairs of his ultimate clothing..... toe socks!
After a quick trip home to have a shower & freshen up we went out for dinner at a Yakiniku restaurant where we gorged ourselves silly on ox tounge & beef karubi & daikon salad & harumi.
It was so delicious.
When we got back to the house Rin quickly organised our fireworks and we went out onto the front footpath & road. One by one we lit the fireworks which ranged from quite big ones that made me want to run into the house, to ones just like big sparklers, to ones that only produced a tiny little spark. None of them were the shoot up into the air and potentialy maim someone ones. ( I did have the video camera filming just in case though) It was fun though. Alot of the fun was watching Rin's excitement.