Culture Day at Bunka no Mori, 11-3-2012

Today was a national holiday - Culture Day - and I had the day (Saturday) off! Yeah! A lot of national holidays fall on Mondays and since that is already my day off, I don't get the benefit.
Naoko, Haruto and I went to Bunka no Mori (The Culture Forest) for a family festival. Both the art and natural history museums there were free of charge today and there were many children's activities scattered throughout. They had a couple of rooms for babies and toddlers, preschool activities and evidently an old fashioned paper book making activity for older children. There were food boths outside - udon, rice balls, bread and scallion pancakes (unusual and yummy) and at the end of the day a police band gave a nice outdoor concert. Although 1/2 way through the sun went down behind the trees and it became considerably colder.
I also finally got to briefly check out the prefectural library that has always been closed when I've been there. Unfortunately, I won't borrow from there because it's too far to go to return the books!
I also made a trip to my favorite cat shrine where a pretty little black cat was sleeping inside one of the narrow boxes that held some charms. Very cute. The cats at this shrine are very well taken care of (unlike the ones at the bigger shrine in Anan). Four of them 'belong to' the caretakers but there were many bowls of food everywhere for strays (I guess). The man also gave me the phone # of a woman, who along with 2 others helps the strays in Tokushima. There are no shelters... so after this busy weekend is over I will call them and see if I can help in some way.
The theme of this festival was 'smile together' and there where many different posters depicting this.

Smile together.