Week 36: Golden Week!

Ok, so Golden week is, in Japan, a week in early May where various holidays line up beautifully to give you a lot of time off of school and/or work.  Many businesses are closed Golden week, travel increases, prices skyrocket, etc.

This year, the holidays did NOT line up beautifully, because some years, you get a lot of time off.  This year, we got 4 days scattered. :P  There was Friday last week, when I went to Cinco de Mayo.  And this week, we had Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off.  So I had to go to work on Monday and Friday.  Which is no fun.  I would rather have had those two days together, because, I'll tell you, NO ONE wanted to be there either of those days.  And we were anyway. Oh well.

So!  Beginning of May is also boys day!  Remember last week, when I mentioned they celebrated with mochi and carp banners?

mochi

ring a bell? No?

Anyhow! Part of the whole "No one wants to be here" meant that some classes did arts and crafts.

cute!

And again, I can't blame them.  I woulda rather done that too. :)

Oh, and I mentioned this before, but you wouldn't believe what I saw Monday!  So, I was biking back from school, and it was a lovely day, and I saw a group of 5 people just standing there, watching the river.  Now, the river is about 15 feet below the ground level, so I couldn't see what they were looking at, so I went over and looked also.  Saw nothing.  Enjoyed the beautiful day for a little, went back to look, when suddenly, I saw it!  A muskrat!

My first thought was "that would make a nice hat"

As I watched, one of the guys watching the river started calling to it!  "Miki! Miki!"  Well, that muskrat popped out of the water and took some bread out of his hand!

A man and his muskrat

He had even trained it to stand up straight when it wanted food!  With a hand signal!

It wants more bread

This man had trained a WILD MUSKRAT.  And was also working on training an Heron. (crane?)

The show ended when a person decided to walk their dog near him, and the muskrat was like "nope! nope nope, no." and went back to the river.

So!  Tuesday, my Japanese friend who likes to take me places and spoil me, went with me to northern Osaka to see the more carp festival stuff!

we got SO lost trying to find this place.

"it's 20 minutes this direction" Hour and a half later, we found it.

The place of 1,000 carp!

We were glad when we finally found it.  There was a nice little river area, and people were picnicking a lot.  And the kids were having fun, and it was just pleasant.

The kids made these!

And the kids were playing in the river

They were fishing with nets too!

and they had some art they used as a slide.

Of course I joined in!  I just couldn't take pictures of it.

And lots of picnickers.

smelled so good!

We hung out there for a little, just enjoying the atmosphere and people watching.

Then we went to a jazz festival.  It was right around the same place as we were, so that made it easier. :)

I gotta say, I'm not sure I'll go to another one.  It's so hard to find music I like, in a venue that's not crowded/smokey/etc.  It took a while to find one we like, and finally just ended up sitting outside the pub, listening to the music there. We could hear fine and we didn't have to deal with the smoke.  We DID hear some good music, but it was hard to find.  We ended on a good note though, so that was nice.

Oh! and I got to see another "what will the Japanese fry?" restaurant. :)

L to R, that's Eggplant, an egg, and tofu.

The best part was when I tried to eat the egg, and the end of it just exploded!  Shot yolk across the table and onto the floor!  I covered it in napkins and was like "never happened! Dunno what you're talking about!"   :)

Wednesday, I went to a festival with an American friend!  It was an interesting one.  A "historical festival".  It honestly reminded me Renaissance festivals!  (I was craving turkey leg all day)

It was at a beautiful venue

nature!

And there was stuff from different countries and eras!

China!

Juggling from...I don't know.

Korea!  With Ribbon hats! 

Fisherman dance from Japan!

Not sure, but I know it's from Japan

And they had a "ancient times life" section!

how weights and measures work.

games!

board games!

Hemp clothes!

rice straw shoes!

cart rides!

something that was like a maypole...

And some other games too, like tops and croquet and stuff!  It was a lot of fun to mess around with. :)

There was a Falconry show

My favorite was how they helped the birds fly by chucking them in the air.

And we bonded with some kids through the age old language of "isn't this a cool rock?"

the cone has a crown!

Which eventually evolved into "let's see how many rocks we can pile on the foreigners."

The end result was a lot more than that. 

There was some Korean drumming and dancing!

story about a man and his cow

this kid did not want to be friends with the quail.

Eventually, we went over to Nara park, as my friend had never seen the Nara deer.

As it was Golden week, it was REALLY crowded

Now, in Nara, there are lots of sacred deer.  And you're not supposed to feed them normal food, just these little deer cakes you can buy there.  But as it was golden week, and lots of people were visiting, they were SO FULL, they were just lying there, docile.

sometimes one would get up

not really begging for food.

People would come up to them with the deer cakes and they'd sniff at them and turn their heads.  They'd be mildly interested in contraband, but...no, no more deer cakes. :)

We saw the big Buddha,

No, THAT'S a building

THAT'S the Buddha 

He really is tall. It's hard to tell.

And there was the pillar with the hole through it.

saw when I went to Nara with David.

The legend is, if you can fit through the hole, you are guaranteed a spot in heaven.  When I saw it last time, I figured, why not? I'll try.

that's a kid there.

Well, I kinda wedged myself in, and David offered to haul me through, and I thought "I bet I COULD make it through this, especially with David pulling.  But what if I'm wrong?  What if my hips get stuck?  Can you imagine the Headlines?!"

I didn't even try this time, the line was too long, and I'm really sure I couldn't get through.

We enjoyed the festival type atmosphere, and the beautiful weather and area

a ship!

flavored ice!

And as it was a really sunny day, we kept applying sun screen, but still got a little red.  Can imagine what we woulda looked like WITHOUT the sunscreen!

Thursday was an adult day.  You know, grocery shopping, cleaning, chores, cooking.  I did a really bad job at it all.  :P

Friday was raining, and no one wanted to be at school.  no one.  Not the principal, the teachers, the students, nor me.

Saturday did much better.  I took the day off as a "personal time" day and was much better at being an adult then Thursday.  Entertaining thing from that was the different kinds of cheetos I saw. :)

yum

So that was Golden week!  Lots of fun!

And now I have no vacation time until July 18.  wheee.

Week 35: It's gonna be May!

The weather is getting warmer!

This is both a good and a bad thing. See, two of my schools are actually faster to get to by bike than by any public transportation. Easier too.  And a good portion of the ride is along the river.  This is nice, because it's just lovely.  It's not so nice because it IS getting warmer, the bugs are coming out, and, let's face it, exercise makes clothes smell a little funny... :)  

Still, I like it.

Except Wednesday.  It decided to rain while I was at work Wednesday.  And then kept raining. I heard it was going to rain SOME, so I packed my rain jacket, but, of course, as soon as I left school, it started really coming down.  So I biked home with wet pants.  And the hood to the jacket kept blowing off.  I mean, at least, I had a plastic bag for my briefcase and purse, but it was still a pain.  THEN I got back to the share house, and of course no one bothered parking their bikes in a decent manner, so I had to wedge in between two, and one of them has a delicate kickstand, so I'm trying to hold MINE up, and THEIRS up and prop the dumb things up, only mine won't stay up because it has my brief case in the basket on the handlebars, throwing off the weight, and I FINALLY got it all worked out, my pants were soaked, I was tired and frustrated, and the manager got to see a normally cheerful yet tired girl storm in raging. :P  

On the bright side, I got a haircut Wednesday too.  It helped cheer me up.

It's cute!

One of the residents here works at a salon and actually cuts the hair of any resident that asks for free!  I gotta say, I was a little unsure about getting a haircut in Japan (since they deal predominantly with people with thick straight hair) but this is one of the best cuts I've gotten! :)

Thursday, I had my full rain suit, so of course, it only rained a little on the bike ride home.  (of course!)  But the WIND.  Oh, that wind was blowing hard.  As there was no work Friday, I had totally planned to go out swing dancing Thursday night, but after that bike ride, I collapsed in my room and begged for the sweet release of death for a little.  OH my legs hurt.

I was better by Friday, which is good, because I went into Osaka!  There was a festival! (is anyone surprised?)  I will admit, I was a little torn. There were two major festivals going on. One is for boy's festival.  You remember girl's festival, with the doll set ups?  Well, boys have carp flags,

FISHIE

And war dolls and mochi treats!

you don't eat the leaf, they said.

So it was a choice between a giant boys festival and Cinco de Mayo.  

Guess which one I chose

I will admit, part of the reason I went to Cinco de Mayo was with the vague and desperate hope that they'd have decent tacos.

I don't know why I got my hopes up.

But it wasn't just Mexico they celebrated, they used it as a chance to celebrate all the Latin American countries!  Like Brazil!

Their Pao de queijo was MUCH better.

I was a LITTLE confused when I first came in and saw a Capoiera group doing dancing on stage instead of a good demo, but, eh, I guess they wanted to get the Carnival dancer up there, and she had QUITE an outfit she was almost wearing!

look at those tail feathers!

But then they had a lot of different countries!

Mexico, reminded me of home!

I...didn't catch the country. Pretty awesome though

Peruvian handkerchief dance. So graceful!

TINY DANCERS

Salsa! (I really wanted to whack those two girls. The ENTIRE TIME

what feathers!

feather butt!

I felt a little bad for judging, but... most of the Japanese don't have the hip movement that Salsa calls for. They did the steps great, but they didn't have much swivel.  But in all fairness, they don't have much TO swivel.  Very slender people.

Oh! And they did salsa dance/demonstration!

those girls had enthusiasm!

Lots of people loved it, it was fun!

Wait, that one was definitely Bollywood moves...oh well.

And THEN the Capoiera group did a halda demonstration!

Good music section!

What fun! 

Wait! Who's that stunning girl?

Hang on, I got this...

Nope, I don't got this. I'm out. :P

Still, it was lots of fun to try!  After, they hunted me down and handed me a flier.  I'll admit I had heard of them, but...it's a little expensive for what I can afford.  It's reasonable!  But...I'm poor. ::sigh::  Nice to know I hadn't forgotten EVERYTHING. :D

Let's see, they had some great music!  

They had a Mariachi band!

No trumpet, but well done anyhow.

They represented Japan at the "International Mariachi festival" in Guadalajara!  I didn't know they HAD an international Mariachi festival!  Their accents were impeccable though!  

I actually had missed Mariachi music. :)

Oh, and they shipped in a famous Peruvian singer!

dunno her name

Which was hilarious because she kept talking to the crowd in Spanish, and about a third of them would respond, but the rest just kinda stared at her.  

There was also a group from Nagoya (a bit north/east of here) and I KNOW some of their members are Hispanic.  They played some great Salsa numbers and again, kept talking to the crowd in Spanish. :)

I was loving it, because MOST of the announcements were in Spanish first, and then Japanese, if it was even translated, and I COULD UNDERSTAND!!  It was nice to be able to go "oh! performance in 10 minutes! Got it!"

Oh, oh! And guess what ELSE they had!! 

NEW ORLEANS STYLE JAZZ BAND!!

They did TWO shows!

Oh my GOSH, it was so GREAT! I could not stop dancing it was so fun!  There were a whole bunch of people just up in front dancing their hearts out and having a great time! (not really a Japanese thing to do, so most of us were Gaijin)  SO FUN.

And after their performance, they would take a walk!  Still playing!

REALLY traditional style

And they were great!

And everyone was following them, dancing and clapping and having a great time and back on stage, the announcers tried to say what was happening next, but no one was listening, and once they had made a bit of a walk, the band parked it and launched into a rousing rendition of "When the Saints to Marching In." And Everyone just lost it, yelling and singing and cheering and it was FUN!  My cheeks hurt from smiling so much! :D

They had a few things that they always have at festivals in Japan,

Yukata

Face painting 

masks worn on the side of the head

...random..guy... dressed up...

And when it was getting late, I was torn. I was tired, I really was. I had danced so much, I had wandered around and had a lot of fun.  I had danced SO MUCH. I was tired.  BUT...how often do I get the chance to do this, right?  So, I stuck around until the end.

While the DJ played

And enjoyed the club atmosphere.  I mean, I do like the wild dancing, it's the smoke and heat I have trouble with in clubs. But since this was outside... no prob!  Heck, I had to dance just to keep my hands warm! :)

In all, a great day!  

I got to speak Spanish with a couple people.  Got to dance with some different people too!  One was while the Mariachi group was singing, I was doing a little basic cha-cha while listening, and I looked over, and this older gentleman was doing it as well, so I just spun around and face him and we started dancing together! :)  Later in the evening, another guy saw me doing a basic Salsa, so he swept me up. :)  Mostly I was glad for the chance to let loose a bit.

I ate bad food, I got a sunburn (not as bad as it coulda been), smiled until it hurt, and danced until I almost couldn't walk.  

SUCH a good day.

You can guess what I did Saturday.  

Yep. Chores. and naps. and lots of sitting.

They had a game night that I joined in on,

SOCIAL AGAIN!  SEE?!

And we played cards and it was fun and they found out that my statement that my brain shuts down at 11 PM wasn't a joke.

"Taaaaaaylor, it's your turn. Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, Taaaaaaaylor."

"I KNOW Kim, I'm thinking."

"But its you tuuuuuuuuurn."

So that's the week! :D  Love you all!