On Tuesday night I skipped Japanese conversation class in favour of going to see some fireflies! Naturally it was a Minato-san event (nobody else would think to tell me about crazy random Japanese things, haha), so I arranged to meet him and Nate in Aioi. We grabbed a quick dinner at Suki-ya before zooming out to Kamigori to meet some of Minato-san's friends. They had two daughters who were really cute, hehe. One was almost Kosuke's age and one was just a baby - she was fascinated by the fireflies :) Mind you, so was I! These little things, called hotaru in Japanese, live near the rivers in some sections of rural Japan and are amazing to see. I'd never seen fireflies before so it was pretty magical.

We visited a few places and generally just relaxed, watching them trace crazy random patterns of light in the air. We all gently caught a few too, and I tried to work out how they produced their light. It comes from the end of their bodies and looks almost like an LED light, it's really quite impressive. We gradually worked our way back from way out in the sticks to a place much closer to Kamigori, which was literally crawling with them, and spent nearly an hour there, entranced by the patterns. Eventually we had to head back and Minato-san was kind enough to drop me in Ako. I was really glad I'd gone to see the fireflies as they really were one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I'm so grateful to have a friend like Minato-san who keeps me up to date with (and takes me to see) all these amazing things :)