Sunday, June 15, 2008
Manyouta Festival
As I found out during a welcome party for home stay students in Yamanashishi, there is an annual festival in Manriki Park called the Manyouta Festival. Uta, in Japanese, means song and the whole festival is dedicated to some old chants. Some of the selected home stay students, along with several local elementary students, were chosen to sing these chants on stage during the festival. While performing, they would also get to wear some traditional outfits.


I was asked by the mayor's secretary if I would like to go and wear a costume. I actually helped the mayor practice a speech he would give at the festival in English and I told him I would go to cheer him on, so I figured doing so in costume would make things a bit more fun for me. She picked me up at my house and took me straight to the festival. We got in a spot of trouble over where to park for a bit, but she used her 'i work for the mayor' powers to help us get a close parking spot. We then rushed over to the costume tent, where she helped me pick out my (too small) outfit. Even though I was told the costumes were traditional dress, I highly doubt they had bright pink, yellow, and blue shiny hakuma back in the day. However, I love to dress up, so it was all good. And of course, everyone fawned over seeing me, the gaijin, all dress up. Later, some of the home stay students also arrived and had to dress up, so I didn't feel so alone.


I got on stage and lit a candle and then listened to the mayors speech. After the speech I congradulated the mayor on his English skills and took some pictures with him. I also ran into one of my 6th grade students, who was hosting one of the home stay students and was going to be singing the special chant on stage. I promised her that I would stay and cheer her on.


After the chanting, I headed over to L river, my favorite local bar, with the mayor and his secretary. They mayor had never been to L river, so I was kind of fun to show him where we hang out. The bar master also seemed quite please to have the mayor in his establishment. After a drink or two, we busted out the karaoke. So, yeah, I got to karaoke with the mayor of my town! Crazy!

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Saturday, April 5, 2008
Takeda Shingen Festival
The Takeda Shingen Festival is held the first weekend of April and is one of the biggest festivals in Yamanashi. Months before the festival people apply to participate in it and on the day of the festival, dress up as various samurai and participate in a huge parade. I really wanted to participate in this, but managed to miss the sign ups. However, watching wasn't as boring as I thought it would be. I went with Tiffany and we had a blast wandering around and checking things out. Next year though, I'll be ready for when the sign ups roll around!

When we got to Kofu, we went to check out Kofu castle, which was were all the performances were supposed to happen. Walking the castle grounds is a lot more interesting when there are various samurai groups camping out.




When we finally made our way to the stage, we ended up walking through a bunch of dressed up people and ran into another ALT, Josh who was participateing in the festival. He was carrying this giant flag and asked if I would hold if for he while he took a few pictures, so I sort of got to participate in the festival for a bit! We chilled with him while things while the main event was happening on stage. It was pretty much an actor playing Takeda Shingen and all his generals on stage talking and serving Takeda some tea. Staying with Josh, we were actually really close to the action.



After the performance, all the samurai armies started moving to where the big parade would start and as me and Tiffany were heading out to get a good spot to see the parade, we were stopped by a group of samurai who asked if we wanted to take some pictures. The even gave us their swords! Please note our awesome paper samurai hats!




After that, we found a somewhat decent spot to watch the festival parade from. It was really cool and exciting for about the first hour, but the second started getting a bit draggy. Each samurai group, lead by one of Takeda's 24 retainers, did a little skit type thing so the parade too forever. We toughed it out though and watched till the very end when Takeda himself finally made his way down the street.









By the time the parade was over, it was already dark and pretty late so me a Tiffany grabbed some Starbucks and then headed home. All in all, a good festival, just a bit too long for my liking. It's almost made me reconsider if I want to be in it or not. I got tired just watching! Who knows how tired I might have been if I actually had to march around in samurai amour for the whole parade!


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posted by am at 12:22 AM | Permalink | 0 comments
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
A New Look at Tokyo
While Heather was visiting, we spent several day in Tokyo. We hit up a few places that I've been to many times, but also went to a few places that I had yet to visit. Some of the same old, same old, places included Asakusa, Shinjuku, and Akihabara. A few new and interesting things happen while there though. In Asakusa, while we were looking around and shopping, a group of what looked to be elementary students on a field trip came up to use and asked if they could ask us some questions in English. It was mostly likely a group of kids from an English school given the level of their English compared to my students! So that was kind of nice. Heather got to participate in some English teaching, if only for a few minutes. Also, in Akihabara, I usually go straight to the Yodabashi Camera and then leave, but this time around I spent a lot more time perusing other places in Akihabara, like Mandrake and Animate. We even ran into another JET from Yamanashi while I was looking for the Death Note soundtrack in the music sections of this big anime store/building. Small world.....



We also went to Harajuku and the Meji jingu shrine. I've been to Harajuku a few times and was at the Meji jingu shrine for New Years, but this was my first time visiting during the day, so I could actually see and take my time to enjoy the shrine. We got really lucky too. The day we were there we can across a wedding party taking pictures and managed to get a few pictures of them. The bride was just gorgeous! In Harajuku we also stopped by a lolita fashion store called Bodyline. While I've seen the fashion before, I've never been to an actual store that sells it till this trip. I was pretty interesting to see all the different designs and they were also having a sale that day so it was super busy!






As for new places, the biggest one was Tokyo Tower. Why it took me so long to visit, I'll never know. Probably because I heard climbing the tower is expensive, and it really is! At the tower you have the option to go up either by elevator or by taking the stairs. Both are equally expensive, but we opted for the stairs as you get a nifty little 'I climbed the Tokyo Tower' certificate if you make it to the top. One there, you can also spend even more to get to a special, and higher, observation deck, but we decided to pass on that. While the tower was fun to climb, and the view is quite nice, there are plenty of nicer and cheaper ways to view the Tokyo skyline. But, it was still worth at least a one time visit. After we climbed down and did some shopping at the base of the tower, we headed over to the temple that is right next to the tower. You actually get a really nice view of the temple complex from the tower itself. On the way over to the temple, we ran across a group of women trying to take pictures of their dogs with the tower in the back round. It was really funny watching them try to get their tiny bite sized dogs, all fashionably dress, to sit still.







We walked around the temple area for a bit. There was some type of festival happening that looked like it was wrapping up as we arrived. Luckily, the decorations were still up and I got a few really nice, colorful pictures. We ended up being at the temple for some time as Heather's brother specifically requested a set of black prayer beads from this temple. He had been to Japan before and got a set, but he lost them or gave them away to an ex-girlfriend or something and wanted another one. Normally its not that hard to find prayer beads or shopping areas at a temple, so I wasn't worried about finding them, that was until we actually started looking. I swear we walked around the whole temple like 3 times before encounter a random, nondescript door that ended up leading us to a little shopping market inside the temple in what looked to be a hallway/conference room type space. I almost didn't even go in the random door as it didn't really look like a place that just anyone could walk in to, but its a good thing I did or we would probably still be looking for the stupid beads. The beads themselves ended up being pretty expensive though, which Heather wasn't too pleased about.








We also ended up going to Ueno park, which was a new area of Tokyo for me. I didn't know much about it except for the fact it is a stop along the Yamanote line and is famous for its cherry trees. When researching good places to see cherry blossoms in Tokyo, Ueno continually came up as the number one place to go. So off to Ueno we went. In truth, I'm actually not a huge fan of cherry blossoms. They're pretty, but no as pretty as I thought they would be from all the hype. I find that I prefer plum tree blossoms. Ueno is fairly impressive though, if not just for sheer number of trees and volume of blossoms. You can't turn your head in that park without staring down a straight away fully lined with them. Beyond just the trees, the blue tarps spread out under them were pretty noticeable as well and sort of pissed me off cause I wanted pictures of the pretty trees, no some ugly blue tarp. But the tarps are tradition as well. They're placed under the trees so that people can picnic and drink while sitting under the trees and enjoying their beauty. While wandering the park we ran across a temple, some type of festival, and a mini parade complete with flute playing monks and cute costume wearing kids. We didn't really do much but wander around and look at things, but that was more than enough. Plus we were really tired and in need of a relaxing break, which Ueno proved to be perfect for.








I'm sure we did a bunch more while were we in Tokyo, but we were so busy during those few days that its all pretty much a blur. While in Tokyo we stayed at a Tokyo Inn near Asakusa. I normally stay in hostels or managa cafes while in Tokyo, but all the hostels were booked and we needed a bit more of a permanent place than a manga cafe. All in all, it was a great experience and I might choose to try business hotels more often. The hotel itself was very nice. They even gave us face and skin care kits when we arrived. I also got a pair of knee high stockings too. I also recall that we did a lot of eating at Denny's. There was a 24hr. one really close to our hotel so we ate there quite a bit. It was funny because Heather refuses to eat at them in America and Canada, but found she loved the Japanese version, which is why we seemed to end up there every night! Anyway, it was a good few days and I had a great time getting to visit new places in Tokyo with a good friend.


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Friday, February 15, 2008
Snow Festival
The Yuki Matsuri (aka. Snow Festival) was a festival I knew I wanted to go to before ever arriving in Japan. Plus it gave me a good excuse to go and visit Hokkaido. So I planed early and went with a fairly large group of people from my prefecture. Got a fairly good deal too! It was snowing when we arrived in Sapporo, but that was the only time it snowed while I was there. It was a bit disappointing as Hokkaido is known for its cold weather and snow and I was expecting way more snow than I actually saw. But, at least the weather was nice for all the sight seeing I did. From the airport, we took a train to Sapporo itself and then a cab with this really cute heart light to our ryokan (aka. Japanese style hotel).





The ryokan was really nice. The lounge area was comforatable and the staff spoke some English, which is always helpful. They also gave us some coupons for various restaurants in the area. Plus, while we were putting away our bags, one of the employees, all decked out in a kimono, came and served us green tea and chocolate mochi.



After getting settled in, we used some of those coupons the hotel gave us and hit up a ramen shop. Sapporo is well know for its ramen and as I love ramen, this worked out quite well for me. I ended up eating a tasty butter and pork ramen. The only thing disappointing about it was that I wanted to try a bunch of different types of ramen but the serving size was so huge that I could barely finish the first, and thus only, thing I ordered.

After that we hit up the town and ran across a rather busy street with a bunch of ice sculptures. There were a few that you could even be a part of, like this one made to look like a castle. Seemed to be a big hit will all the kids. After that we ended up doing an all you can eat/all you can drink deal at a karaoke place.

The next morning we got a bright and early start. Checked out all the massive size snow sculptures and various smaller snow and ice sculptures. There was also a cute ice slide for the kids.






Can't go to a festival without picking up some food, so a bunch of us got panda shaped meat buns. There was also a reverse panda (like the picture, but switch the black and white parts). The revers panda is a popular icon in the area in the large numbers of avaialble merchandise was any hint. Besides food the only thing I picked up while in Hokkaido were a hello kitty sapporo ramen ketai charm and a snow festival 2008 hand towel.


Hokkaido is famous for its crab, so the next day we hit up a crab restaruant. The ryokan people helped us make a reservation and provided a coupon too! The place was really nice and the crab was great! There was an insane amout of variety in what you could order with carb. Crab sushi, sashimi, gratan, plain, cooked, in a salad, tempura style......etc., etc. The only downer was that it was super expensive. Thank goodness for the coupons.







After that we went back to look at even more snow scupltures. They seriously seemed to never end! Also watched a few people jump on the make shift ski slope they had. Couldn't resist taking a picture of some guy who was standing next to use also watching the skiers and snowboarders.. The hair!






Hokkaido is also famous for it's Ghangais Khan (aka. lamb meat) so that night we went to and did and all you can drink, all you can eat lamb deal. After that we hit up a karaoke place once for a few hours and then headed back home.

There wasn't much time between waking up and having to go to the airport on the last day so we just bummed around the city. Myself and Elaine ended up hangging out while the others went out for some kind of famous soup. We went up to the top of some building and rode the ferris wheel that was there and took in the scenery. It was a nice relaxing way to end my Hokkaido trip.


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