Bon vacation

Yesterday was a blistering hot day. It's still boiling hot. It's like I'm taking a hot sauna all day.　Temperatures have been around 35 degrees Celsius even in tsunami-hit areas. Evacuation centers and temporary houses are extremely hot.

Crape myrtle(百日紅, sarusuberi) are in full bloom even in the extremely hot season. Saru-suberi literally means "monkey slip."　Because even monkeys can't climb the tree due to smoothness of its bark. Actually, monkeys can do it.

LIGHT UP NIPPON successfully ended. Children were delighted. Adults recalled last summer and thought of their deceased family members.
The oldest fireworks festival was held along the Sumida River in 1733 as part of a ceremony to pray for the spirits of the victims of the great famine in 1732 and to drive away the evil disease.

Many people will have Bon vacation starting tomorrow. Many people started to go back to their hometowns or go on trips today. So transportation facilities are extremely crowded. The roads and trains bound foｒTohoku Region are packed with many of people from Tohoku.

Twenty-six years have passed since Japan Airlines Flight 123 with 524 people on board from Haneda to Itami crashed into Osutaka Ridge in Gunma Prefecture at 6:56 p.m. on August 12th, 1985.
On the evening of the 11th, the bereaved attended a ceremony called Toro-nagashi(灯籠流し) was held. They floated paper lanterns down a river. In the early morning of the 12th, they climbed the Osutaka Ridge to comfort the spirits of the victims.