Full Moon Cakes on the Beach/Matsuri's!

  Hidaka-cho, Gobo City, Nachikatsuura, Susami, Minabe, Japan
Friday, October 13, 2006

Hello everyone!

Things are going well in Japan...the weather has cooled off, and fall is beautiful! It's been so nice to sleep with the screen doors in my apartment open, theres always a lovely breeze since I'm right on the water. I can't wait for the leaves to start changing. I love that Japan gets so into their seasons. They are so thematically oriented - just like teachers! Decorations on street signs change (fake fall foliage now), decorations at even the 100 YEN (dollar store) change, even down to the drinks at 7-11, no longer slushees because its fall! Now a warm drink is served. No one goes to the beach anymore either! Beach season is technically finished because summer is over. Even the Junior High and Highschool students have to wear their winter uniforms even though the temperature still reaches a high of 75-80 degrees. Their uniforms are hilarious, it looks they are wearing old military blazers. The boys uniforms are based on Meiji era formal military dress, and modelled on Prussian-style naval uniforms.



2 weekends ago another ALT, Party had some friends visit who are studying abroad in Japan. I drove the other Southern ALT's up to Gobo City (about 3 hours north) and we hung out at a small beach in Parry's town. We made a bonfire, and had smores! It was lots of fun! In the morning we all had delicious scrambled eggs, compliments of Lily and Japanese instant coffee, called Blendy. Justin and I went to a driving range in Gobo, which was pretty run-down, full of men who chain smoked in between practically very ball they hit, a 70's-esque lounge to watch Japanese baseball, and of course a female employee there to be at your beck and call, whether you needed a drink, a light, or another bucket of balls.

Later that day Justin and I drove down to Ryan's town - Minabe. First impression was that it seemed a lot more western that my town. There was a new, big town library, with AC, streets lined with real curbs, palm tree lined streets and even beautiful pot hole covers (see pictures). We met up with Ryan and Sara and walked to the local high school to teach Sara how to play baseball, she did really well!

-8 JETS that live in the surrounding towns all came to Minabe to have dinner at Ryan and Chris's favorite sushi restaurant, it was really good! i ate these snails that you pull out of shells with a needle then eat the squiggly body, they were kind of good after i got over the fact i was pulling a snails body out of its shell and eating it!
-drove home, dropped people off along the way, Lily and I are always last to get home :) but its nice driving with people in the car, driving is MUCH cheaper with a full car than the train, even 2 people its a lot cheaper than the train, its so nice to also have the freedom to leave whenever you want and stop when you want, plus we get to see the coast and the ride to and from places is always beautiful.

School:
Only taught 3 days last week which was nice, on the way to one school with a principal who picks me up and speaks little to no English, one of the things he did say to me that i understood was "You look berry hell-see" (You look very healthy) Thanks? hahah because I hope I do! Am teaching fruits/vegetables/foods at school now, bought some cute fake food at the dollar store that I use for games. The kids LOVE competitive games and get so excited when we do team games where the first person from the team to name the fruit gets to sit down, etc...They get so rowdy in some of these games they actually stand on the desks, and tackle each other to race to seats. In which point they 'Janken' (Rock, Paper, Scissors) to see who gets the seat. I forget if I already said or not that major decisions (even with adults) are sometimes settled with a little Janken. Very strange but so funny. The kids never get upset or retaliate when they lose janken and have to give up a seat either - they take it very well.

Volleyball Tournament-
Shima-san informed Lily and I that last Thursday we would be playing in the town volleyball tournament (for government employees) and that we would need to pay 1000 YEN to cover insurance. We were told to come to the BOE Thursday evening and we would be given a ride to the big indoor arena in town. We were handed a 'snack' as we entered, these rice triangles, and gross brown wheat tea. That was supposed to get us ready to play volleyball?? Lily and I felt bad we couldn't eat them they were so gross. Japanese volleyball (at least what we played) is called 'Soft Volleyball', the ball is like a kick ball and the net is a lot lower. We were placed on a team of women, one of whom is a janitor/tea lady/gardener at one of Lily's schools and the other lady is a librarian in town. Most of you know that I've never played volleyball before, so I was of course nervous! I did pretty well, although we lost our first game to Kindergarten teachers wearing French Maids costumes!! haha We moved to the losers bracket, but by that time I had gotten the hang of the game and we were doing really well! The librarian set me up to spike the ball on almost every shot - and I did successfully spike it about 6 times! The other teams were scared of me, haha - our whole BOE was watching cheering us on. After playing 4 games the tournament was finished, and we sat down for the raffle! The Japanese love to give prizes out after events like this - tonight there was: a heater, 2 hairdryers, a DVD player, a bike that folds in half, beef, beer, bed sheets and cookies. Lily nor I won any big prizes, but we did win 4000 YEN for coming in 1st place in the losers bracket! Fu night :) Lots of the ladies we played against practice every Monday, and they asked us to come play with them, so I might do that!

Tea Ceremony Practice:
Had my second tea ceremony practice last Friday- it went well, learning by repetition and by watching my teacher. When I arrived she took me back outside to cleanse myself in her fountain before we entered her house. She taught me the special way to wash my hands and to put water up to my mouth (but not drink it) to represent the cleansing of my mind before I enter her home. She spoke decent English to me during the lesson which made things a lot easier. She needed help with words for directions: underneath, diagonal, across, etc...My legs hurt so much from sitting in seiza stance (on my knees) and whenever my teacher wasn't looking I would move my legs around to try and wake them up. I don't know how they sit like that for hours!! She told us about the Full Moon that was that evening, and it's importance for a good harvest this season. In the West, when we look at the moon, we see a man on it. The Chinese see a rabbit, pounding magical herbs to make the elixir of eternal life. The Japanese envision the same rabbit pounding rice to make cake. Very strange! She also explained that Japanese people buy tsukimi dango (a type of special chewy almost gum like cookie) and eat it while watching the full moon and sort of offering it to the moon to in exchange a good harvest. I like going to tea ceremony because I'm learning so much about Japanese culture. Our teacher always makes time to tell us about the few (very specifically timed/placed decorations) in the tea room. We admired a beautiful scroll of the Nachi waterfall, of course with full moon depicted in the corner. The tray she served our sweets on had flowers and rabbits on it. And the cakes she served were round, and placed in the upper left corner, to represent the full moon. Amazing!

Full Moon Cakes-
Lily and I went to the super center after practice ended and looked for the full moon cakes. There were lots of special cakes in the front of the super center, and we didn't know exactly what they looked like, so we waited for someone to pick a package up and decided to buy the same thing they did. We then drove out to the cliffs in our town and enjoyed our Japanese treat under the full moon. The rice cakes are extremely sticky and difficult to swallow, and many people apparently choke to death on them every year!

"The bunny's two ears point up from New Zealand but point down when seen from England, so many northern people do not recognize our familiar moon rabbit.
However, Maya Indians are supposed to have recognized the moon rabbit.
The Rabbit is made of black moon lava."

Road Trip to Susami for Matsuri/Christmas trip planning!
I drove to Sara's town, Susami Saturday afternoon so that we could plan some of our Christmas trip! That evening Ryan, Sara and I attended her town festival (Matsuri) and followed the parade through the small streets, ending at the local shrine. Matsuri are native Japanese festivals of Shinto origin and are held on fixed days. "Japanese matsuri are mainly of sacred origin, related to the cultivation of rice and the spiritual well-being of the local community. A matsuri is basically a symbolic act whereby participants enter a state of active communication with the gods. It is accompanied by communion among the participants in the form of feast and festival. The latter are sometimes large festivals that attract audiences from outside the community."[\

Everyone in Sara's town was so friendly and excited to see that we came to watch the festival - they even made Sara the leader of the parade, put a happi on her and gave her a taiko drum to play! After the dragon dances, taiko drumming, and bamboo flute playing at the shrine we went with some people we met to the Matsuri practice house (which we later named the Japanese Frat House, because it was so rowdy) for food and drinks. The night ended up being really wild, with Ryan being dressed in the dragon mask playing with a samurai sword! Ryan and I also performed the National Anthem after we heard one of the Japanese men humming it. Check out the pictures! It was really cool to be a part of such a small towns festival :)

Other weekend events:
Onsen in Minabe at sunset
Dinner and hung out at Mikes in Gobo City
Minabe to see Chris play Bamboo Flute in Minabegawa's Matsuri-yet another crazy festival!!
This one was much bigger and there were various groups of participants, young, old and very intoxicated! The men carrying a huge float thought it was really fun to ram the float into the spectators! Once again something that would never be allowed in the US. Men also carried huge bamboo flags that sometimes fell into the crowd too - no one seemed upset though, even the old ladies were laughing! There were lots of carnival games and lots of food vendors too. We bought really good roasted chestnuts .

On the way home the usual group we drive back home with stopped to watch the famous sunset in Shirahama and have DINNER AT SUBWAY!!!! It was so delicious, even if they didn't have chips or cookies to complete the meal. I think we are going to make the subway a regular stop on our way home from places :) They play western music and have tables where you can sit outside! very rare for japan, my town at least.

I'm now in the process of getting my visa for China. They have really tightened requirements for Americans recently, and sometimes even conduct INTERVIEWS! You have to get a visa even if you never leave the plane! Crazy...so the group I'm traveling with has decided (instead of taking 2 days off and traveling to Osaka to get the visa from the CHinese consulate) to send our passports home to have our parents get them at the Chinese Embassy/Constulate Offices. We are all lucky and live close to embassies/consulates! Thanks for doing that Dad!

We've booked all of our hotels for Beijing, Bangkok, Ko Phi Phi and Ko Phangan - and are counting down the days until we leave. I can't wait to travel!