Hopefully a quick post today because I didn't do much and want to have a relaxing day to catch up on some video games! (Still sitting at 14k steps though (￣□￣」))

I made my way to Nezu Shrine early in the afternoon to check out the Nezu Shrine Festival. It's actually maybe a good thing that I was too tired to go yesterday since I think that the mikoshi parade is only today.

On the way, I walked through Shinobazu Pond which is on the south end of Ueno Park. Most of the pond is covered by plants (lotus according to wiki) but there is a section of that pond for riding in duck (?) shaped boats

There is also a temple in the center of the pond, Shinobazu Pond Bentendo. I went to check it out and was surprised because it was insanely busy. There was actually like a 100 person (at least) line to go into the temple to make offerings. It turns out that today is Minarukane Taisai (also potentially known as the Shinobazu Pond Bentendo Grand Festival), which is held on the day of the snake every September. I'm having a bit of a hard time finding English info about how to figure out when snake day is (巳の日 minohi) but apparently it's a very auspicious day!

Anyway, I made my way to Nezu Shrine and found all of the usual fesstival excitement, but also a new trend? A labubu stall??

I also managed to embarass myself a bit because I was walking from one area of stalls to another and was looking to my left thinking wow that's quite a line of people as I was walking through a little empty area. But then I looked to my right and realized I was walking right in front of a stage area where they were about to have a performance. I kept my head down and increased my pace but luckily it was only like 20 feet wide so it wasn't too long. And they hadn't started playing yet but I guess I would have noticed ahead of time in that case lol I'll work on my situational awareness!

You can just imagine me walking between the people and the stage in the photo below lol

I also got some of my beloved mitarashi dango

classic bite out of it before I took a photo

When I left, I got a little caught up in the mikoshi parade as it passed by.

After the parade went by and I left, I explored the area a bit and almost encountered an awful fate. I was standing at a crosswalk with like 20 other people and somehow we all narrowly missed being pooped on by a bird. I literally saw the poop flying through the air and heard it splatter on the ground in front of me. Gross! No one go hit but a dad and daughter were laughing about it. Everyone else was playing it stragnely cool. I looked over at the guy next to me with wide open eyes and he didn't even reciprocate SMH

With that on my mind I also thought about the potential for bad luck with this vending machine I used

Imagine accidentally scooping the coins from coin return right into the drain below. I guess you could consider it an offering to the city and maybe that would make you less irritated?

Also a couple quick things I have been meaning to mention but keep forgetting. 1. compartment bathrooms are awesome, maybe I'll write about them one of these days 2. the amount of people wearing masks here is way down from last year (anecdotally obviously). I think that even on the train I'm seeing less that 10% of people wearing masks. Maybe it's because we aren't super far into flu season now but I was expecting the rate to be similar to when I visited in October of last year. Not good or bad either way but something I felt that had changed