Wait! Is that a...comet falling out the sky?

That was how my very romantic date was interrupted. Lucy and I were taking a stroll in very romantic date spot AKA Yokohama when this unexpected phenomenon disturbed our peaceful meandering along the waterfront.

I shouldn't have been that surprised. Less than an hour earlier, I'd seen a guy wearing goldfish hanging off his ears.

The backstory....

The JLSP crew had been invited by some of the Nihon Uni volunteer students to Yokohama for Oktoberfest:

"Do you know about Octoberfest? It is a german festival.You might already know that Germans drink beer and eat potatoes everyday.And we can experience this lifestyle."

"I want to experience this lifestyle," Urvesh proclaimed. And so we all set off for this experience.

A beer festival, however, is not exactly my idea of a grand day out. So I joined Tom P and we crashed Calle's visit to the Yokohoma Museum of Art. On approaching the museum, Tom was a little slow to program his cultural mindset.

Tom P: "Is that a rollercoaster?"

Calle: "Yeah. For Chihauhaus."

The museum was exhibiting Degas, a 19thC French artist who liked to paint dancers. I wasn't a big fan of his work - the early work sat uncomfortably between impressionism and realism, and lots of the paintings were evidently unfinished, whereas the later work were repetitive paintings of naked women, bending over drying themselves. However, I did get to see a bit of Dali, including this awesome statue (the one on the right, in case you can't tell):

Tom P and I then ventured towards the beer festival, only to be smacked repeatedly with those "Only In Japan" moments. Firstly, the only available food without queuing to go into the festival was a "Love Box" - which included a sandwich and some chicken nuggets. Then we saw this dude:

I would love to know the thought processes that went into this costume creation. How organic was it? "Hmm, it'd be really messed up if I wore goldfish round my ears" versus "I love Kenta and Riku so much - how could I possibly leave them at home?"

From being confronted by the weirdness of Japan, I was then confronted by all things German. Pictures of beer and sausages grinned down at me. The festival was packed and included a traditional German band on stage. And a vast number of foreigners sloshing their way between tightly packed wooden benches.

Lucy and I were, unsurprisingly, less than enamoured and so we ventured along the waterfront. It was quickly evident that this was a very popular couple activity. So whilst we were feverishly snapping photos of the landscape and sunset, the couples snapped away couply photos of themselves. So of course, we did things properly - we got our own couply photo too.

Then I saw the "comet". To be honest, it was falling WAY too slowly to be a comet. So slowly it didn't actually look like it was moving. And there are two of them! Here are a couple of shots:

And here are some zoomed in photos:

I'd love to know what you make of it. Or if anyone has heard about this in the news.

Sunday involved no "comets" but a fun afternoon out with my friend Rie. And some purikura - these photos machines that make you look uber-cute with super big eyes: