Joe In Japan

Ohisashiburi! It’s been a long time, eh? Well, since it’s coming down to the end of the semester here, I’ve been busy with this and that, but I’ll try to give you all a bit up an update now. There were festivals at the beginning of the month, then a camping trip with my club and the culture festival at my host family’s daughters’ school. Also, in other exciting news, I have successfully applied for an extension, so I will be staying here in Japan until February 2009! One semester just wasn’t enough. Well, without further ado, let’s get on with it!

I actually had no idea that there was a festival going on Sunday, June the 29th. The evening before, Lim came by my room and told me about it, mentioning that he was going to go with the regular crew. Of course, since I had no plans for the following day, I wanted to go! So the following morning I had to get up a bit earlier than usual for a weekend (about 9:30am). Paku came by my room to see if I was up and then we all went out to our bikes and pedaled to Dote-machi, a long, main road that cuts through the center of Hirosaki. It didn’t take long to figure out where the festival was, since we could hear the booming music blocks away. We parked our bikes and headed over.

There were large groups of people performing these choreographed dances while loud, half-modern/half-traditional Japanese music blared from the speakers. I learned later that this was a style of dance that started in Koichi, Japan, which has since spread to much of the rest of Japan. This particular Yosakoi festival was influenced by the one that they hold in Sapporo to the north - the most notable thing is that they often yell out soran soran soran! while dancing. I’m not sure if that means anything in particular, though.

We went on for a while like this, watching the various dancing troupes come out and do their routines. After a little while, Hwang showed up. We watched a bit longer, but at this point we were all fairly hungry and decided to go to the Mr. Donut donut shop up the street. Along the way, we met with the Hirosaki University dancing squad, who was in the queue to perform. I recognized a couple tutors for some of the exchange students.

I gorged myself on coffee and donuts along with the rest of the guys for a bit. We ended up getting on the subject of music and I spent a bit of time playing some tracks off of my iPod. I’ve even gotten Lim into DJ Shadow now, one of my absolute favorite artists. After the gorging, we went up the street to get a better view of some of the acts up there. We ended up seeing what appeared to be several professional dancing groups, who had some really steallar choreography.

Now for some video from the event, so you can get the full effect:

The next big summer event, as far as I know, is the Neputa matsuri that begins August 1st or so. From what I’ve heard, it’s a really wild time, with everyone cheering in the streets while giant papier mache floats go by. I’m certainly looking forward to that one!

Well, now for the next big celebration of the week, the 4th of July. Being an American, I couldn’t let this day go by without some partying! Alex was actually the one who organized a barbecue, mainly because he is the one who has a grill. I promised that I would be in charge of the music, though. I made a mix that included such great hits as “Born in the U.S.A.,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” “American Pie,” and “America, F**k Yeah” from the movie Team America: World Police.

When I showed up, there was only Hojin and Alex outside Shimoda Heights, but the crowd would get a bit bigger later on. Alex was firing the up the grill when Koji and Sarah showed up, along with JJ a bit later. Pretty soon, the beer was flowing and the patriotism overwhelming. We had a flag, the music and some small fireworks going. It was quite amusing, actually, since early on Hojin decided it would be a good idea to light off some bottle rockets in the middle of the neighborhood we were in. One of them ended up being a dud and flew up onto someone’s roof, and a second exploded just outside a window. Needless to say, we all told him to stop it. We would be going down to the Iwaki river later to shoot off fireworks, anyway.

The food was really great, even if it wasn’t quite American fare. We enjoyed some yakisoba, wieners and pork. After a little while, I headed back to Hojin’s room to chill with him, Masumitsu and Takashi. Koji ended up coming by later. Since we were going to lighting off some fireworks, I decided to call up Lim and see if he’d want to come. I went outside and made the call, but as soon as I did JJ came up to me and whispered, “Go back inside! The cops are here!” I guess what happened was a combination of loud partying and the fireworks from earlier. It really wasn’t a big deal, actually, since the the police just told the guys outside at the grill to keep it down. They actually ended up chatting for a long while. I later asked about this and it turns out that the police around in Hirosaki are fairly bored when they work, since this is a very peaceful city (I haven’t heard of once of any significant crime being committed).

So after that was all said and done, we hopped on our bikes and went out to the Iwaki river. All along the way, I carried the American flag we had with us, waving it like crazy. We must have looked like an insane posse of gaijin, what with our running around the city. At one intersection, my host mother of all people was turning past in her car. She yelled out something to the effect of, “Be careful!” Later when I met with them, she said that she in fact saw me and was proud of me because I stopped at a red light when everyone else kept on going. We shot off fireworks for a bit, then called it a night.

I had a camping trip on the weekend of the 11th with my club. It was my first one since about a month ago, so I was looking forward to getting out there and enjoying the countryside like I did on the rafting trip. So how did it go? Well, for one thing it was a very tiring affair. We arrived at night the evening before in order to set up our tents and be ready to go in the morning. We spent a bit of time doing some rope work and then it was time for bed. The next morning we were up bright and early at 3 a.m. and eating some soba noodles for breakfast. We donned our gear and headed out.

That day had to be one of the longest I’ve had in a long time. We were up at 3, hiked out to a steep hill near at waterfall that required ropes to climb and then before it was even 6 a.m., we were at our campsite for the evening. We spent the remainder of the day doing what was called sawa nobori, which basically means stream-walking. We hiked upstream, up, up, up, all the way to the top of a mountain, and then we bushwhacked back down the mountain until we met up with the stream again. A little further down was a steep, rocky waterfall, so we had to rappell down. After more hiking, we finally made it back to camp around 4 in the afternoon. I was unbelieveably tired, but ultimately I was very happy for having made it through the trip. Sometimes, I think, you have to step outside your comfort zone and do something adventureous, or even arduous, to really appricate life.

The next day, we packed up and went back home, but not before soaking at an onsen while taking in the views of the lush, mountainous lands around us.

I guess the last thing I can comment on in this post is my trip to my host family’s daughters’ private high school and their culture festival, known in Japanese as bunkasai. You can see Riina in the photo above, she’s the one to my right with the towel. The culture festival is structured much like a festival back in the U.S. would be: there were various activities in each room, and some of the rooms were selling things in order to donate the money to UNICEF. While there, I was introduced to “Nick-sensei” by my host mother. He is a English teacher at the school, and since the school is actually a Christian school (I’m exactly sure what that means to the Japanese, since I didn’t see one cross or Bible anywhere) he gives services at the school’s chapel. The day was quite enjoyable, but since I was out late the night before and the festival was overwhelming in its noise and activity, I was quite ready to go home and rest for a while. Here’s another a photo I took while at the festival, this time with Saaya and some of her friends (that’s her directly on my left):

Well, I hope you all enjoyed my little update here. While I’m at it, I may as well lay out some of my plans for summer break, which is coming up quite soon here. The 1st of August is the Neputa Matsuri, which is one of this region’s most famous festivals. I’ll actually be wearing a kind of uniform and marching in the first night’s parade with a bunch of the other foreign students here. The festival will last for about a week. After that, I’ll probably we traveling a bit with Hojin and probably stop for a couple days in Kyoto and Tokyo, after which, if everything works out, I’ll be heading to Korea with him and Lim for about 10 days! Since my birthday is on the 16th, I’ll probably be having my birthday in Seoul or Pusan. I wouldn’t have ever imagined that happening! Finally, my parents will be coming in mid-September to visit and travel Japan, from the 14th to the 27th. They’ll stay a bit in Hirosaki, and then we’ll move on to explore the rest of Japan. Likely suspects are Tokyo, Mt. Fuji, Kyoto and Osaka.

One last thing: I really like it when people leave me comments on the posts here, it encourages me to write more. If you have read this far, then you must have something to say! Just scroll down a bit further and leave me one. I don’t even require registration, it’s easy. ;) Well, until next time!

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