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Onishi Matsuri
18 Tuesday Sep 2012
Posted JET Information
in18 Tuesday Sep 2012
Posted JET Information
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08 Wednesday Sep 2010
Posted Gunma-ken
inSorry for the lack of recent updates… I’ve started school and been extremely busy!
The weekend before we left for the US was our city’s annual festival, affectionately called Fujimatsu, a mashing of Fujioka Matsuri. Once again, Kenji and I were signed up to help carry the mikoshi for the Board of Education. I was looking forward to another year of riding around on top of it, but this year the weather had other plans!
The day started brightly enough, though, as we drove on over pretty early to get ready, eat, and watch the parade.
The kids mikoshi start earlier in the day, and boy was it hot! We watched for a bit, then headed over to where the mikoshi is held to start getting ready and to eat.
Here’s preparing for later in the day, by wrapping padding and red and white cloth around the bare wood of the mikoshi’s “legs”. While the guys did that, I went up to change and eat with the girls.
I also insisted on getting a jacket. Usually the girls don’t wear them, but I noticed last year as well as in pictures of previous years that, well, often the girls DO get them! So like last year I insisted, only unlike last year the girls were stark and traditional this year and didn’t go for the jackets. I was glad I did however!
A “rival” mikoshi from where we were changing
The mikoshi in place, we wait to watch the traditional Fujioka dance by all the obaachans. I want that yukata!
Posing with the giant fans. I don’t remember these last year! I carried a lantern like last year though!
By the time night started to fall, fat raindrops were starting to fall as well. We got as far into the festival as we could, covering the mikoshi, lanterns, and fans with plastic bags, but the weather proved too much.
At one point, it started POURING in a way I haven’t seen since one summer in Texas where we got some serious rain and everything flooded. It is a rain I have never experienced in Japan before. This wasn’t any wimpy rain, oh no. This was a storm determined to end things. We tried, but eventually gave up and gathered under an awning as best we could. I had ridden on the mikoshi for a bit in the rain, so I was absolutely soaked, and glad for the double layers. At once point, I went back into the maelstrom to grab plastic bags for the cameras, and found the majority of Fujioka holed up in the Piago grocery store. Dodging students and acquaintances and shedding water all over, I grabbed a few bags and went back out.
We tried to wait it out, but eventually authorities decided to cancel the rest of the night, so we took the mikoshi back. I got another chance to ride, but was disappointed it didn’t continue. Damn you Gunma weather!
Oh well, next year will be nice I hope! We cleaned up and went off for the night and prepared for the next morning.
The next day was the dashi, and at first we were not going to pull for icchome like last year. For one, we no longer lived in icchome, and two, hadn’t been asked. I wore my brand new yukata, and we camped out at Kenji’s barber’s store again to watch the crowds go by, then at once point walked around and passed the icchome station… whereby Oyaji caught sight of us and asked us to help pull again this year. Well… alright! We were planning on leaving a bit early, as the next day we were flying to the US, but we helped for a little while, then left. The clouds threatened, but luckily didn’t pour like the previous day.
Trying to get the right effect…
Karaage yatai (stand)… I didn’t get much festival food this year!
So that was Fujimatsu. A bit different than last year, but still really fun, and one of my favorite activities to look forward to in summer!
21 Saturday Aug 2010
Posted Gunma-ken
inAlso that weekend was the Onish Matsuri, which we also went to last year. This year I wore yukata, as did Kenji. There were a ton of students there, and overall it was really fun!
We didn’t stay super long. We walked the food stalls (of course), watched the dashi for awhile, saw the short fireworks, and then left to beat the crowds. It was short but sweet!
19 Thursday Aug 2010
Posted Gunma-ken
inWow, long time no post! The problem with waiting so long is I forget what I wanted to talk about, and what happened… but I have to post SOMETHING, so I guess I’ll just make it up as I go along! Luckily the pictures help…
Anyway, June towards the end was busy with packing and moving, and July hectic with new house stuff, but before I post pictures of the house I want to catch up on all the random stuff I have pictures of, so here we go!
These are views from our roof at the house in Shinmachi… it is a pretty day, but not sure why I included these…
Rainy days during tsuyu… I think this was one of my last days at Higashi. This is a tiny little shortcut I found like a week before school ended -_-;
Tanabata festival in Shinmachi. Tiny, but nice!
The decorations were awesome and huge. So big in fact that that truck in the second picture couldn’t go through and had to go around!
Taiko! Some pics of Brandt and Scott here
The first I just liked, the second is all the gaijin now part of the group!
Two videos. I could listen to taiko ALL DAY and never be bored.
Moving day! First pic from the fourth story of our apartment at the full trucks with our stuff, and the second enjoying pizza and beer at the new house!
So as me and Mizuki returned from getting food and drinks (courtesy of our BOE and Kawata-sensei, how awesome was that?!), we saw a newly-opened 7/11 with Yuuma-chan. So of course we had to get stuff from 7/11 as an excuse for a picture!
That was a fun, if tiring, day.
23 Wednesday Jun 2010
Posted Gunma-ken
inTags
Before I started packing, I took pictures of my apartment as it was, so I’ll share those here. I liked my apartment… I’m going to miss it!
Left into my powder/shower room. The new house has running water so I wont need to crank up the bath every time I want hot water! This is also, obviously, my laundry room.
Toilet. That spigot doubles as a sink, which is a pretty good idea!
This is my closet room. It was originally the bedroom, but I spent three hours there my very first night in this apartment tossing and turning in the heat before getting up and moving my futon into the air-conditioned living room. I never looked back. Also, wow I have a lot of stuff!
The kitchen, looking back toward the balcony, front toward the front door of the apartment, and coming out of the living room at my kitchen table, which is usually covered with papers. That giant dog is Kenji’s.
Lastly, the living room which is also a bedroom. It is covered in only one futon now, but at the time there were two. Crowded a bit with two in there!
And I wont post many pics of the new house until we are all moved in, but I do have to share the Wallpaper Fiasco with everyone.
When we first went to see the house, the wallpaper looked like this:
I mean, it isn’t bad, it just looks old, and like it would go perfectly with shag carpeting. I like brown, but I didn’t like the pattern, and it was covering everything that wasn’t a room, since the rooms all had different paper. (Literally; every one was different!) So we asked if it would be possible to change the wallpaper when we moved in. “Sure!” they said, so we also asked for white, off-white, beige, something like that. Just a plain color to brighten the space.
This is what we got:
I think I physically recoiled from it. The wallpaper… isn’t THAT ugly. It is actually nice quality, and as an accent somewhere (Versailles?) it might be okay. But covering EVERY wall in every hallway and overhang, all the way up the stairs? God no. It was terrible.
We were a little upset with it, since we had specifically said we wanted, you know, white, so they agreed to change the wallpaper again. Actually, we chose the new one together, since they didn’t want something “plain” and we didn’t want something “not-plain”. We managed to compromise, and now it looks SO MUCH BETTER!
Ahhhhhh. See, now that is what a hallway should look like! Anyway, the house looks pretty good now, and we move in this weekend (t-minus 3 days!) so I’m really excited.
And one more random picture from the first day we looked at the house:
This room also recieved the new white wallpaper, and will become my room!
22 Tuesday Jun 2010
Posted Greater Tokyo Area, Gunma-ken
inTags
friends, fujioka, izakaya, jazz, karaoke, maebashi, odaiba, pottery, sake, tokyo, tsuchi-to-hi-no-sato
This past month or so has been a tight one financially, what with the trip plus a plane ticket home, so we haven’t traveled anywhere or done a ton of activities. At the same time, it has been fun to relax and only have a few things to look forward to on the calendar… it seems more fun that way, since you get to wait for them and be excited when the day finally comes. Here are a few things we have been doing:
That same weekend, Kenji and I started our pottery again, this time on the electric wheel. I like this much better than making it by hand to be honest… I can’t wait to see what they look like when they’re finished!
June is the rainy season, and there is something kinda nice about walking to school in the rain! I loved this spider web and the raindrops. If you look close at the last picture, there are some cute kittens hiding in the bushes. I didn’t see them on the rainy day, so their mom probably found them better shelter.
I baked cookies as “thank you” and “happy birthday” presents, etc. And of course, I ate a few myself too!
Speaking of birthdays, we successfully gave Mizuki a surprise party on May 27th! Hey Ibuki, look at the camera okay?
MOS burger and karaoke on June 5th, an awesome combination. It was a fun night! Brandt is mimicking a tambourine maniac on TV in that video!
The very next day we went to a wedding Nijikai in Tokyo’s Odaiba. The groom is one of Kenji’s old middle school friends from Seattle, and I was able to meet 4 of his old friends from that time. I really liked everybody, and the nijikai was fun! I also happened to win Bingo… the one person in the room who didn’t know ANYBODY. I got tequila, so I gave it to Kenji! I hope we can meet up with those friends again!
So, we’re moving. I’ll explain in the next post about it, but we wanted to visit our little izakaya around the corner before we moved out of the apartment. This glass (box?) of sake is what gets me in trouble, you can’t tell how much you are drinking, and they overfill into the plate as “service”! There is an izakaya across the street from our new house, but I’m going to miss this one!
Finally, another kitten picture, taken on my way to work this past week. They all popped their heads up and looked at me as I walked by, and I couldn’t resist grabbing my camera. Thanks for holding still, guys!
This month has gone by pretty quickly; we’ve been busy packing and moving. This weekend is the big one!
22 Tuesday Jun 2010
Posted Gunma-ken
inTags
This year has been a cold one. Winter seemed to linger through April and May, which meant that the wisteria came a bit later this year than last. This worked out, however, as we were in Thailand for the usual season. This was my first year to see them in all their glory!
When we got back I had taken an extra day off of work to recover, and besides cleaning and relaxing, I went out to take a look at the Fuji in the part near the apartment:
The next weekend was not too late, so Kenji and I went up to where the Fuji Festival is held every year. The festival itself was over, but since the blossoms lingered so did a lot of the food stands. Festival-style food is my favorite!
Then we went to Tsuchi-to-Hi-no-Sato park, where we do our pottery stuff. We actually hadn’t had a chance to go in almost 5 months, and we were able to pick up some things we had made, and for Kenji to finally finish a bowl he had done before we stopped going. We decided to keep doing the pottery, this time the electric wheels, but not that day.
Driving back, more Fuji, then we stopped in at Scott and Naomi’s to check in on Ibuki-chan. She just keeps getting cuter!
24 Wednesday Mar 2010
Posted Gunma-ken
inTags
basketball, friends, fujioka, plum blossoms, snow, spring flowers
Spring is creeping North, a bit too slowly for my liking. The plums are blooming, we’re finally getting buds on the sakura, and… wait, what’s with this snow?!? Ahhh, March.
One rainy day I walked by these plums in full bloom, though the raindrops were already scattering petals.
Don’t know why, but I really like this picture!
Higashi in the snow. It very rarely snows here, and even rarer during the day… usually from the night before. This day, however, the snow started in the afternoon and just didn’t stop!
By nightfall we had gotten a couple of centimeters, so Kenji and I decided to take a drive around in it.
We headed toward Onishi, and finally decided to turn around after awhile. Here, the weight of the snow makes these bamboo touch the road.
We turn down a road this tree was on… and mistake a field for a road (hey, snow covered everything and it was hard to see!) We sorta got, er, stuck. Some nice man finally came around and helped pull us out, but yeah. That wasn’t very fun.
The next mrning, it had finally stopped, but not before covering everything. The stairs were scary that morning! I decided not to risk biking and walked instead, giving me lots of chances to snap pictures!
The plums were really pretty with the snow on them! I like this delicate pink color a lot!
This picture is neat… it looks like ice, but it had melted to slush so you didn’t slip when you stepped. But the air is still trapped under. Interesting!
Fast-forward a few days, and the weather turns beautiful and actually HOT! Well, relatively anyway. These plums look fluffy!
Almost sakura season…
24 Wednesday Mar 2010
Posted Gunma-ken
inOne Saturday, the weather was nice but we didn’t have anything to do and didn’t feel like snowboarding, so we just took a drive around Fujioka to look at the kofun, or burial mounds in the area.
It made me miss archaeology! First picture is many arrow heads, etc. the second is writing on bark, and the third a special exhibit about how the Fujioka roof tiles are made.
Next up is the kofun with a nice view of the snow-covered mountains, including Asama.
We also walked to a second kofun a few hundred yards away. The wind was super strong that day!
Then we decided to head to Yoshii, to Mt. Ushibuse, where the replica castle is. This was where I walked with Nishi ninensei once. The day was pretty clear, so the view was nice!
A little further up from the castle was a small temple with a bell anyone could ring once. We had fun, but it was REALLY loud!
Me and Kenji ringing the bell!
There was also a little underground passage with lots of statues.
Circling back towards Fujioka we stopped at Hiraijou, the remains of a small castle that was the administrative center of the area. Nothing is there now except some raised land and a field, but they still have festivals there and stuff.
On the way back, we stop at a combini. Products in Japan sometimes come with little toys or something as a promotion, and Kenji’s coffee that day had a little wind up horse and guy in the theme of the famous samurai of old, which actually fit pretty well into the historical theme of the day. So we did what any 24 and 25 year olds would do: went in, bought another, and FOUGHT THE GOOD FIGHT! For the record, I won:
Videos. The first is just the one horse, the second one I’m making fun of Kenji for going back inside and buying another one, and the third is the battle. Please note, this entire 20 minutes was spent sitting in the parking lot at 7/11. I don’t want to know what the other patrons thought!
The next day, we headed to Kyoko-sensei’s so Kenji could photograph Taku’s first shrine visit! He’s cute, but chubby!
Not content with one baby, we also visited Scott, Naomi, and Saya-chan. Brandt poses Saya with Scott’s hat, awww! We played games for awhile. Scott has this zombie game that he plays while Saya looks on… glad to know she’ll be prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse!
Video! Can you feel the tension?! Also, I don’t know why the sound cuts out after awhile. It is like that on the computer Also, it is kinda long, sorry!
The next Friday I didn’t have my kimono class since one of my teachers was on vacation, so instead I tried my hand at putting on my new kimono by myself! Yeah, I need more practice! It’s HARD! This blue kimono my sensei’s bought for me for 500 yen (around 5 bucks) at an estate sale. I love the bold colors and pattern!
I didn’t bother taking a picture of the back, it was pretty bad lol! Anyway, so that was some of the random happenings in February.
08 Friday Jan 2010
Posted Gunma-ken, Saitama-ken
in… haha. Okay, sorry about that. Here’s the rest of the Christmas pictures!
I got off school early to do a little cooking, cleaning, and wrapping, and then when it hit 5pm, we headed out to get our Christmas Cake and KFC for a “traditional” Japanese Christmas! Kenji made mashed potatoes, I took care of the salad, and voila! We had a great Christmas eve dinner! Exchanged presents… then went to bed early for work in the morning (awwww). Still, it was really nice!
…with a giggle at the Santa Colonel Sanders on the way out!
Dinner… which got cold from taking a million pictures before hand!
We opened gifts and one of mine was…. MARU! THAT’S RIGHT! Maru has his own book, with a DVD! I happily watched an hour of a cat sliding into boxes. I have no regrets.
So that was Christmas eve. The weekend following, Kenji and I decided to go see Avatar. But not at just any theater. We figured if we were going to pay the ridiculous rates Japanese theaters charge, we might as well make the best of it and go see it at the 3D IMAX… in Saitama. Faaaarrr away in Saitama. 2 hours driving, to be exact. But it ended up being TOTALLY COMPLETELY WORTH IT OMG. I don’t care what they say about Avatar’s plot, it is a gorgeous movie and I’d see it again in a heartbeat. The mall it was in was HUUUUUGE so we did some shopping, saw the movie, then took juuust a few pictures on the way out with the Where The Wild Things Are posters!
Lastly, pressies! Thanks mom and dad! Of course I had to arrange them nicely!
And mom’s without the food, since I haven’t gotten the other box yet.
Thank you guys!