craziest shit...

I experienced something today that I have never experienced before. A thunderstorm for solid 6-7 hours. Yes. It was the craziest shit. I'm talking about that at times it was like flashes every 2 seconds and then when the weather was just chilling, then it took breaks for maybe 10 minutes and then started again. Insane. I took some pictures and videos of this and you better recognize my crazy, ill camera skillz when you see the pictures.
A little bit further to the west, there were landslides and flooded rivers and just happiness all around because of heavy rain.
http://picasaweb.google.com/gustafh/JulyVarious

In other news, school is out.

In other news than that the school is out, a big festival is held here in Kyoto every July, called the Gion festival. Gion is the oldest part of town. Most of the Geiko and Maiko live there (Geiko is what we foreigners know as just Geisha (even though it's not the same...), and Maiko is apprentice Geiko). Anyhoo, this festival has been held annually since the 9th century or so.
What I discovered is that even though the festival is a pretty big deal to locals, then to foreigners who are used to different type of festivals, the nights before the festival are a bit more entertaining. The festival itself is on the 17th of July every year. For the 3 preceeding evenings, the busiest streets downtown are closed to traffic and made into pedestrian streets. Food stands then run along the streets, both directions. The atmosphere this creates is pretty amazing. There I finally saw the Japan we are often shown in Western media, with streets so crowded as far as the eye can see. We went downtown on the night of the 16th and I have some pictures up of that as well as a few from the 17th.
http://picasaweb.google.com/gustafh/GionMatsuriYoiyama

Laters.