This weekend, STL is host to a balloon festival. Friday night, Saori and I were both burned out from studio, and from our previous weekend of housing workshop, so we decided that it would be a nice break to go see the "balloon glow." This is an event where all the hot air balloons are inflated in the middle of the giant fields in forest park at dusk/evening and are periodically lit up from inside by their flamers, turning into giant glowing lanterns.
We walked to the light rail station by the school and took it one stop to the middle of the edge of forest park. It was still about a mile walk, but it was fun to be surrounded by other StLouisians, wandering through a giant dark forest park. It made me really feel like a local for the first time. When we finally crested the hill, we were greeted by the glare of arc lamps, illuminating a dusty field of people milling around in line for various food stalls and tents, and beyond were the great balloons. We walked through the throngs of people, trying not to step on encamped families, darkness punctuated by waving LED swords and wands, and the occational flare from a balloon flame. Every five minutes or so, air horns would sound, and all the balloons would flame together, filling the field with an orange glow. It was really cool and surreal, wandering around. There was a giant beer bottle, an energizer bunny, a building block sized bag of popcorn and cyclopean can of Pepsi in addition to the other regular balloon shapes.
Saturday was actually kind of nice since we pretty much dedicated the day to cleaning the apartment and doing laundry. There's something so nice about walking on clean, grit free, wood floors. Late saturday afternoon, we picked up Saori's mom at the airport and took her back to our apartment, where she'll be staying for the next week.
And here are some photos of Suki and our cheap but reasonably looking futon in situ.
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