Spring

Spring is finally here!! It was almost hot today! And we've had two sunny days in a row!

And the Insane Festivals Keep Coming

A few days ago, one of my teachers invited me to a midnight festival in Furukawa- a small city near Takayama. I had no idea what to expect, but decided to go anyway. After an amazing dinner at someone's house, her friend found a spot on a roof overlooking one of the city's intersections. We sat up there while a crowd started gathering around a fire in the middle of the intersection.
Nothing happened for a while, then all of a sudden, things got crazy. Groups of men dressed in white shorts and a bandage-type cloth around their torsos started showing up. They were carrying taiko drums bound to long logs.

Several of these groups showed up, maybe representing different parts of the town. After some sake-drinking around the bonfire, the groups started gathering around their poles. And then there was this:




And this was all leading up to the big event. For the previous hour or so, a huge taiko drum was being carried on a platform by about 70 men, with a few men standing on top and beating the drum. It was being paraded around the city, and as it approached, the whole street was a sea of people.
At this point, all the groups of men with their small drums had hoisted them onto their shoulders and were all rushing the big drum trying to hit it. Apparently, if any of them do, they earn some kind of ranking for next year's festival. This scene lasted for about 20 minutes, then the big drum just kept moving. I couldn't believe how many people there were, and how no one got trampled (though, I hear some years, people get badly injured). I'm just glad we were up on a roof to witness the whole thing.

Backstreet Boys

I can see the potential benefits of having students sing songs in English in the classroom. Even some pop songs. But I couldn't help laughing a little when the students (and I!) had to sing the Backstreet Boys in class today. Some of the words were "Ain't nothing but a heartache, tell me why, Ain't nothing but a mistake..." and so on. It's not even good English. It did entertain me, though.
And that's all I have to write about. So here's a cute picture of one of my students:
He's one of the smallest 3rd graders I have. We had just finished eating lunch, so I asked if that's what was under his shirt, but he told me "No. Baby".

Cherry Blossoms and Fire

The cherry blossoms have finally come out in my city. So this weekend, we had a barbeque to celebrate.

This tree has also been blooming in the last week or two. I have no idea what it is, but it's my favorite so far. The flowers are bigger than my hand.

After the barbeque, we made our way over to the Tejikara shrine, which is on the edge of our city. Every year, they have a fire festival, and I was told it would be worth the train ride to see. The danger alone made it worth it. They would NEVER allow something like this to happen in the States. The festival involved large lanterns on swaying posts and the explosion of them into sparks. Sparks that rained down on the audience!
When we arrived, we saw about 8 of these nice lanterns about 40 feet up in the air. There was some bell-ringing and dancing by the festvial participants (i.e. half-naked men who we were assuming had consumed a LOT of alcohol before the event), and then suddenly one of the sets of lanterns would explode in a shower of sparks. They also had little floats, carried around by the half-naked men that were shooting sparks all over them. None of the men seemed to care too much, as they just kept dancing and parading the floats around.

We weren't standing all that close to the men, but we could see the sparks bouncing off of them. It was insane. We got showered once or twice ourselves; I was still picking ash out of my hair the next day. Anyway, it was a great festival- especially because no one died. That we know of.

Before I forget, here is a picture of me in a kimono for the Cherry Blossom Festival, where I participated in 2 tea ceremonies.
The woman with me is one of the English students I have once a week at my office. It was her kimono, and now that I look at this picture, it does look a little small on me. It took about 45 minutes to put on.

More of the trip

So we still didn't know where we were going to go next. We packed up and took the long bus ride to the train station. And then we looked at our wallets. Travelling around Japan is expensive. Instead of heading south to see more of Kansai, we decided we should probably start heading back home. Since we would go through Osaka, we decided to stop at the aquarium- which has the largest tank in the world. Here are some pictures:
This is my first sloth ever. I have always wanted to see one, and even though this was behind glass, I was pretty excited about it. It's eating a banana.

Giant crabs. They were maybe a couple of feet tall.

Eventually, we made it back to my city and it was nice to sleep somewhere free. The next day, we went into Gifu to hike up to the castle. There is a small park at the base of the mountain, and in the park is an insect museum. I have always wanted to go, so we checked it out. It was great!! They had amazing displays and tons of specimens.

Wakayama (part 3)

So the decision to go to Wakayama was kind of spur-of-the-moment. We just found it in the guidebook, and it looked closer than some of our other options. We got to the city in the afternoon, took the bus to a hotel we found in the guidebook, and settled in. After spending too much time trying to tell the man at the front desk that we didn't want meals included with our room, we left to find a restaurant. Walking around the area, we started noticing that there weren't any restaurants. Or convenience stores. Or anything. We finally found a small building with a small plastic food display outside. And lots of karaoke. There were a couple of women working at the bar, and one older man (he must have been 80 or so) singing on a small stage. We ordered some food, and Bryan made the mistake of opening the karaoke book. The women were really friendly, and they took it as an indicaton that we wanted to sing. After a lot of convincing, we got up on stage.
And the women who worked there LOVED Bryan. I'm pretty sure even during the peak season, not many foreigners come to the part of town we were in, so Bryan was exotic. This woman couldn't stop hugging him.
It turned out to be a good night.
The next day, we took the bus back to the main city and walked around the castle grounds.
It may just be that I haven't been to enough castles in Japan, but they all look about the same to me. We walked around until it started to rain, then headed to the train station. Suddenly, after walking down the hill from the castle, we were in a small zoo. We couldn't tell if it was part of the castle grounds- there were no entrance booths or even personnel. It was just strange happening upon birds, monkeys and bears when we least expected it.
African cranes


This monkey seemed a bit eager for us to get close to the cage. I was just waiting for him to pee on us.


This bear seemed so bored and lonely. It was a little sad.


A mix between a rabbit and a deer?

We spent the rest of the day exploring the city, including a couple of shrines. And it just kept raining on us.
But we did find one cherry tree in blossom.
After we made it back to the hotel, we discovered another restaurant in the area- it was packed, and we had to wait 30 minutes in the rain, so we figured it was good. It WAS good, but all they served was meat. We ordered plates of raw beef and chicken and cooked it at our tables. After not having eaten much meat for the last few years, it was a bit of a shock to the system.
Again, I will have to write more tomorrow.