Japan Summer 2010 – Ice Blocks

What is the best way to entertain people in the cities during the hot (and humid) days of Japanese summer? Ice blocks in the main shopping area of course.

The blocks on their own could be a little bit boring though. So why not to insert some flowers in them?

Now – this is really cool. But why not to go one step further? What about embedding a bunch of small toys inside the ice? This really seems to make the trick as every ice block is surrounded by dozens of kids (and adults):

The craters (you see in the ice) are result of meticulous work of kids (and often their parents) trying to make their way toward the embedded toys.

It is really surprising how long it takes to melt a several centimeters hole within the solid ice block. Often one kid will give up and another one will take over his/her work. Sometimes I saw them even using tools (a 10 yen coin for example). This is a cheating though and usually happens very late in the afternoon when there is no time left for the more conventional melting methods.

Some of the ice blocks are frozen see bottoms but you still can take every fish or water plant as far as you can “melt it out” first:

All the pictures are from the main shopping gallery of Kobe from today 01.08.2010 but I saw similar ice blocks during other summer events also. I presume they have their own Japanese name but I couldn’t find it yet.

In any case it is a nice entertainment for the kids and completely free of charge (for the parents ).