Adventures in Japan: September 2015

So this week was Silver week. Those of you familiar with Japanese culture (or who have read way to many manga, like me) have heard of Golden week, in the Spring. However, silver week comes in the fall, and apparently it only comes by every few years. According to one of my principals, the last time they had silver week was 6 years ago. I'm glad I was here for it though! What silver week is, is three days off school! The first day was "elder's day" (or grandparent's day in the US)

c'mon, it's adorable

And Wednesday was Autumn Equinox. And Tuesday was "we have two holidays right next to each other, let's not go to school Tuesday, hm?" day. I like that holiday the best, I think. :D
Well, after the Danjiri festival, I was ready for a relaxing day. I did have plans though. I had to go grocery shopping, I needed to do laundry and clean my room, etc.

Guess what I accomplished Monday? NOTHING. I read ALL DAY. It was a really good story.

Well, Ok, not ALL day. I did force myself to go grocery shopping.

I have to say, grocery shopping is easier with a bike. Before the bike it was "Hm. I have to go grocery shopping. Do I REALLY need food, or can I just ignore this meal and go tomorrow?" Then I would eat the snacks I horde. Now, with a bike, the store feels so much closer, and I have a basket to keep the heavy stuff in! :)

Tuesday, I did the other stuff. Then I decided to go on a bike ride. I was feeling restless, and the tourist bureau says there's nothing to DO around here. (you know it's bad when even your tourist site says that.) So I looked at my map and said "Huh, that looks like something" and went to check it out. I found a cute park!

Where the kids were fishing out crawdads! There was a fire station

it's for SMALL fires

And a restaruant

tempting, but not really.

And a...

Library. No, really. Cool, huh?! Mostly I just enjoyed tearing about on my bicycle.

Wednesday, my teacher from my first school invited me to visit her in Kobe!
She took me to China town!

(she was oddly surprised when I mentioned that there were a few Japan towns in the US.)

That's her! I asked her why she was wearing a scarf on such a warm day. "It's a towel". Ok then!

We went to the pier, where they were having an art thingy, so we got to see some cool sculptures!

And then we went to a mall (because what's an outing without a mall?) where I found THIS gem of a store.

It was full of turquoise stuff.

Yup. And she was kind enough to take me to the local grocery store and point out some stuff I kept looking for but couldn't find because I CAN'T READ JAPANESE. I mean, sometimes there's English. But sometimes it's not especially clear!

I'm not sure how well the fish MAKE this though.

It was a fun day, anyhow.

Thursday and Friday were school days, so I had to TEACH. and do WORK. ugh. :P The principal at my Friday school wants me to teach the kids some songs, and I'm all for that. I was working on the pictures and putting the words onto signs so it's easier for the students, and I got all the way through "I know an old lady" when I showed the principal, she paused. "Do you think that's a...good song?"
"...yes?"
"but...she dies."
"Because she swallows a horse. It's silly."
"but she dies."
"It's just a silly song. Kids love it."
"but she dies."
"I will try to find alternatives, ok?"
"Thank you!"

SO! I'll have to re-make some of that. But I spent long enough on the pictures, I didn't just want to toss them! Speaking of, I wanted to teach them "Sally the Camel" but...turns out I can't draw a camel. Not even a BAD one. Ah well.

Saturday was fun! I finally found the Ex-pat magazine so I know when all the festivals are! (this is..probably not actually a good thing, considering my addiction to festivals.) So I found out about the Chinese festival in Kobe! The magazine said it started at 10:00, so I showed up around 11..ish. When I got there, there was nothing going on! I looked around and finally found a sign (completely in Japanese) that had a list of times that started at...2:30. Well THANKS. I wasn't sure I could just hang around for that long, so I wandered back to the pier, looked at the art again, found a guy practicing some bike tricks...

This was actually one of the big turn around points of the day. Just, watching his skill and the grace of his ability. I mean, ok, he fell off a few times, but he really worked at it and it looked GREAT.
Then I found a long street mall and was able to kill the extra time.

a dangerous place for me

even MORE dangerous

What is this western dragon doing here?!

I finally killed enough time I was tired and went to sit down on the edge of the performance area for the Chinese festival. I was still early, but, hey, sitting. When they started, they actually came by and had us stand up, and I felt sorry for the people behind me, because, well, I'm taller than a lot of them. And now I was in front of them. Wasn't going to go to the back of the group though! that was MY spot!
When the festival started, I was glad! And not. Because it was LOUD. and RIGHT THERE.

now imagine all of this playing at once. right next to you.

I slipped my headphones in to cut the volume a bit, and enjoyed. They had lion dances!

you know? new respect for the tail. Really.

the head gets all the attention, but that tail has SKILLS

And I was eaten.

To be fair, most of us were.

a close up of the perp for later identification.

They did dragon dancing too!

Which I had seen before in a parade, but it wasn't the same, because when they DON'T have to move down the street, they get in lots of fun casual acrobatics! Like "Oh, for this part, my dragon has to go high, so I will casually walk up my partner's back, no big deal"

At one point, to get the undulations right, they were all JUMPING OVER IT. It was pretty amazing. I would show a video, but remember, I was front row. Doesn't video well.

They had Tai Chi demonstrations

WAR FAN!

And then the CUTEST LIONS EVER.

I'm at ground level here, because I've sat down again.

This guy was all "forget eating heads! I'm gonna dance!"

They had a juggler/comedian, and even though I don't understand Japanese, I did get some of the jokes. So you know he's good.

Why yes, he's juggling with boxing gloves on.

I stuck around for one more lion dance,

they walked around like this.

But when I saw the line up for MORE of them, I decided I was done. I'm sure they were going to start doing the really impressive dances, but I had a headache from the sun, cymbals and dehydration (I gotta bring more water) and was ready for BED.

On the way back, I DID find something cool! An owl cafe! Where you can go in and be with OWLS! I did not go in, because I was tired, but I've got a mental bookmark for later. :)

So that was my week! Nothing really BIG, but, lots of fun little stuff.

My culture lesson was that Japan really is a "gift giving" culture, and I'm expected to get gifts for my co-workers when I travel.

Even as far as Kobe.

For all the teachers.

For all three schools.

I've decided I'm going to start lying about my weekends.

"So, what did you do?"
"Nothing. I went no where. I did nothing, I saw nothing."

Maybe I'll tell them I did something, but only within city limits.
"Oh, just hung out with friends at the local park. Went shopping, you know."

Let's just hope they never find the blog. ;)

I went to a festival!
This wasn't like that little festival the first day I moved into my new place. This was a CITY WIDE festival. Of course, it was a different city, but I showed up anyhow! :)
The Kishiwada Danjiri festival is apparently a big deal, famous all over Japan, and according to an information packet we got, draws people home from various places in Japan, that don't even show up for Bon or New years! "Therefore, it is not strange that it should be the highest efficiency season for the police to arrest the wanted." I'm not kidding, the packet said that.

"What IS a Kishiwada Danjiri?" I hear you ask!

Well, Kishiwada is a city, just south of Osaka. And this is a Danjiri.

It's a wooden cart in which, as far as I can tell, neighborhood gods reside. Each neighborhood gets together and decorates it and hauls it around the city to visit each shrine/temple in the area. Over the years, it evolved into quite the festive undertaking, especially as there is a certain element of danger. See, these things are heavy. And they hold a lot of people.

Far as I could tell, on the inside alone, they usually had 2 people on drums, 1 on bell, two on flute and a few for backup. On the outside, 2 in back to do directing, three in front to be the elders and any number hanging off the sides, and of course, the one guy on the top, jumping from side to side on the roof!

And so there are a LOT of people hauling them.

no, more than that

and in front of every corner, they wait a moment, then the pullers dig in their toes, and the brake is release and they go SCREAMING around the corner as fast as they can! Now, I know you're thinking, "they're running, how fast can that be? Well, since they're going around a corner, the force IS enough that sometimes people get thrown off. I got to see it! He rolled across the street about 10-15 feet before popping back up and hopping back on. There's a guy that stands on top, and historically they're the ones in the most danger, but I never saw one of them fall off. And of course, rumor is that at least one person dies each year, but I'm not sure how true that one is. :)

The sight said that the festival would go ALL day, until 10:00 pm, but that the big race around was at 6:00 AM, and I really wanted to see that, so I agreed with my festival companion that we'd meet there around 6. Which, with travel time, meant I woke up at 4:30. Kinda peaceful actually.

Getting there was a little adventure, I accidentally closed my map app, and only by the good will of God found enough free wi-fi to not get TOTALLY lost.

So I arrive at the station, and it was PACKED. But I got to see this!

They have people of all ages from the neighborhood pulling (ALL ages) and everyone wears traditional clothes and a neighborhood specific jacket, and a towel rolled up and tied around their heads, and the girls (yes, lots of girls pulling too) all had their hair done in these REALLY elaborate corn rows!

Found my festival companion, and we watched different danjiri go around for a while, then decided to walk the festival and see what there was to see.
We found a shrine.

And some fair food.

those are danjiri shaped cake thingies. I think they needed custard.

Oh look, you can get your french fries with chocolate and/or caramel sauce!

Fruit dipped in molten sugar. Gives a new meaning to "candied apples"

And, of course, adorable children.

The kids learn the music by practicing it when no one else is using the danjiri.

As we were wandering around, we were waylaid by someone who was like "so, you look like you're foreigners." (we had realized not just 5 minutes before that we hadn't noticed ANY OTHERS around.)
"yes....?" (what gave it away? the blond hair or blue eyes?)
"We have a foreigner information center over there and you'll get to take a cool picture and we'll give you a fan and a traditional headwrap."

well, ok then!

We saw a few others while we were there, The jackets are like what the people who pull the danjiri wear. :) We did not get to keep the BIG fans, but we got some smaller ones and it was a good thing too, 'cause it was HOT.

and we wore these the rest of the day. I'm CERTAIN we ended up covertly in more than photo album.

While we were there, they told us two things. First of all, the racing around the streets happens 3 times throughout the day, so we didn't actually have to show up at 6 AM. Secondly, they circled on the map where the most dangerous corner was, because it was shaped like a Z, so two turns right after another.

This is us waiting at the dangerous corner. :D

They made the corner, while looking FABULOUS. (some might recognize the musician dressed as characters from Momotaru)

There were breaks in between the racing around, so we did other fair things. We ate odd food, we saw Kishiwada Castle,

And saw a VERY traditional tea house and garden. My festival partner had taken a class on different gardens, including tea gardens so she could tell me a lot about the technical bits of the tea ceremony and where the garden falls into it. :)

Near the end, our adventures turned into "Let's go over there. And sit." "Ok, lets see what's at that park. And sit." "food time! Let's sit and eat!" :)

We did hang around until dark though, which is longer than I usually stay at a festival. (at least one I started before sunrise) But there was a reason! They pulled the carts ONE more time! Slowly this time, and with LIGHTS!

And because they were going slowly this time, they let the REALLY little kids pull too!

Some of those kids were yelling with all their might, trying to get everyone to pull faster. :)

I'm helping!

they also let the little ones play the instruments. Kid's drumming was on POINT

We were GOING to stay until it closed at 10:00, but by 9 we were done. "Yeah, let's go home, beat traffic." done. This did not stop us from rubbernecking on our way out, and getting some candy.