I went to a Takeuchi Jinja shrine festival at Tochibara-no-Sato. Several banners more than 13 meters long were hanging from poles inside the shrine. People in Kure City, where Tochinobara-no-Sato is, use the word yabu for devils. A yabu character in the festival procession had hair of handmade Japanese paper. The attractions include target shooting and lots of food stalls, and I look forward to going every year.

I attended the children's program at the temple during summer vacation. A college student who is studying Buddhism in Kyoto came and played with us. We had a flavored shaved-ice party and played games. We also did a watermelon bust. That was the first time for me, so it's my strongest memory of the program activities. We all ate the watermelon that we had split open. The priest's talk is always interesting.

I went with my friend to his grandfather's house in Kamagari, on an island. The sea is close, so we can go swimming whenever we want. My friend's grandfather grows rice plants in buckets on his big roof. The rice plants had turned gold in color and had grown really tall. The breeze felt good on the roof, and we could see lots of islands in the sea. We made curried rice and enjoyed eating it together.