Finally!

The long awaited weekend blog!

I’ll try to do all this in order but it was a long weekend so stuff might be a bit jumbled up.

So the first thing to realize is that all last weekend was the Obon Matsuri. This is a primarily Buddist themed festival that celebrates the dead and helps them to pass on to the next world, while simultaneously allowing the living to remember and let go of their loved ones. The time period has a lot of fire works, as well as people going to the family graves to clean them and make little offerings to their dead relatives with favorite foods or whatever.

So on one of these days, one of the towns that’s perhaps 30 or so (maybe a bit less?) minutes away by car was having this festival in the evening. I don’t have a car, and the busses don’t run that late, so I had resigned myself to not being able to go, when I caught B online (at work). She mentioned the festival and I mentioned how I would like to go but couldn’t. Turns out, her Japanese English Teacher is actually a diver (there is a point to this, bare with me). She is buddies with these other divers of the diving teaching/certification group called Nice Buddy (In English, its actively called “Nice Buddy”). Nice Buddy is run by a nice man and his wife, and it turns out his two daughters are students of mine. Anyway B’s JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) had invited her to go see the festival along with her diving buddies. (B had already met the people of Nice Buddy, cause she’s interested in learning how to dive, infact she’s already dived (dove?) twice). B asked her JTE if there was room for one more, and I ended up going with B and the divers. So B and her JTE pick me up from my apartment and we head over to Nice Buddy. It wasn’t until after the usual round of yoroshikus (ritual-esq pleased-to-meet-yous), that I realized we were going to the town with the festival (Wakamatsu I believe is the town’s name) via boat lol. The man who runs Nice Buddy’s boat to be exact. So we all pile into that (and by all I mean me and B, the man who runs Nice buddy, his wife and two kids, and I think maybe two other families with middle school age kids, and a couple of babies and a couple of other people? Haha so hard to keep track), and we boat on over to Wakamatsu. Apparently the festival was happening at a port, so this was actually faster than trying to have everyone drive there.

The boat ride was actually quite nice nad calm, and the scenery was beautiful. Some of the wives wanted to practice their English, and B and I had fun giving them different words to say. We found that “Flip flop” as in the sandal, is a good exercise for Japanese people to try and say to master new English sounds.

Anyway we get there, yada yada yada. I’m going to skip through the formalties and get right to the good stuff.

The festival.

As we step into festival groups, we find that there’s a live action show going on. B and I, intrigued, move closer.

And we couldn’t believe what we saw.



I think our reaction went something like this

o.o

o.0

>.>

<.<

Um.

Are those….Power Rangers??

We turned to our hosts who assured us that of course they WEREN’T Power Rangers!

Silly Americans, we’re on the Goto Islands!

These are GOTO Rangers!

Go go Goto Rangers!

We watched in awful amusement as these Goto Rangers (apparently the islands could only get two Goto Rangers) fought some Puddies.

You remember puddies, those people in grey suits who ran around making blubbery noises? Well it was basically the same thing, only it was men in black spandex with their underwhere outside their pants wearing puddy masks.

I was to stunned to take a picture of that. I apologize.

But I did take a couple of blurry pictures of the big enemy:




I apologize again for the quality of the pictures. My hand was shaking from the laughter that I was trying desperately to hold inside.

For the Goto Rangers were fighting Godzooky.

You remember Godzooky, from that old cartoon show that combined Godzilla with Scooby do? And Godzilla apparently had a nephew named Godzooky? Well even if you don’t remember, all you need to know is that they were fighting a guy in a Godzilla suit, a guy that was shorter than I am, in a suit that apparently didn’t have eye holes, because any time he needed to move somewhere, stage hands had to come out and lead him.

It made fighting the powe- excuse me, GOTO rangers rather difficult, as one might expect. Though from the bouncing about the Goto Rangers were doing, apparently Godzooky’s short little arms could pack a punch.

Eventually though, with enough cheers of “GANBARE!” (you can do it!) from the children in the audience, the Goto Rangers were able to vanquish their foe.

ACTION SHOT!



Once down, apparently Godzooky couldn’t get back up, and not just from the awesome power of Goto Rangers, but from the weight and unmovableability of the costume. After being dragged off to the side by the stage hands, Zookie’s feet would remain a constant scene in the background for the rest of the show.




Eventually the show ended and the people dissperesed, and I was left with the unsatisfied urge to take out a flute and try to summon green ranger’s zord. Or to poke the feet with a stick.

Once I was able to calm the sadistic nerd within me, we explored the rest of the festival, and B got to play the “scoop the fish into the bowl” game that we seen so often in anime depictions of festivals. She tried three times but only caught one fish, though it’s a beauty of a gold fish. Then the man running the game scooped up a little ugly fish and gave it to her as well, her “pity fish” as I like to call him. As far as I know, both fish remain alive today, and if she can keep them alive for several weeks, she may invest in a hamster.

Anyway after we explored we all trooped back to the boat to watch the fireworks. Now, I’m not gonna lie. The general thought process with myself and my brother is that if you see one set of fireworks, you’ve basically seen them all. But these were actually pretty good, the sort Dad would have especially enjoyed. There was hardly ever a moment where fireworks weren’t in the air, and there were a few I had never seen before, the sort that shoot up into the air then do like zigzags in the sky before exploding and such.

The real show however came afterward on the boat ride home. By then it was pitch black out, especially since we were in the middle of a bay, and there’s not exactly street lights in the water.

B and I were teaching my student English slang, when suddenly gasps came from the center of the boat, along with excited pointing overboard, and cries of “mite mite!” (look look!)

The water was glowing.

More specifically, the plankton within the water was glowing. As the boat plowed through it, something about the waves and the movement of the plankton in the water made them glow like neon green, making the water and the waves light up. And then, glancing up we could see THOUSANDS of stars, shining brightly without the hinderance of pollution or electricity. We even saw a couple of shooting stars.

It was quite a magical moment. I had no idea plankton could glow! I can only hope it’s a natural glowing, or one that will give me super cool mutant powers later. Either way.

So the day was exciting and fantastic. I was on a festival high when I got back to my apartment, and decided to relax with dinner and some movie watch'n. My predesessor has a tupperware full of bootleg movies and shows and one of them is Love Actually! So, happy as the clam I often was back in college I settled down with a oven made pizza, some cola, and one of my favorite movies.

Perhaps maybe 30 minutes before the end of the movie, I decided to pause and go ahead and clean up my dishes. I paused my movie and brought up itunes (any and all chores, no matter how small, but be accompanied by music) and turned around to face my kitchen.

Only to catch site of something large and black clinging to my otherwise pure white towel, hanging outside my ofuro (shower room) door.

I stared at the blotch. Stared long and hard as my stunned mind realized that the large blotch had several tendrils that looked alot like legs coming out of it.

And as (ever so ironically) Seal's "Bring it On" played in the background, I realized that my house had been infiltrated.

By Spizilla. For the first time.

Everything that happened next was something of a blur for me. I think I went into a state that was equal parts shock, panic, and self preservation. I grabbed my broom and spray, and then committed what has to be at the top of the list of Japanese Cardinal Sins.

I put on my hiking boots.

And wore them inside the house!

What happened next was an epic battle of me spraying and flailing with my broom. Then Spizilla, with skills that would make a ninja obaachan proud, zipped into my ofuro.

Panicing, I slammed the door shut, figuring I had locked Spizilla in a cage for the time being, and tried to gather my thoughts.

Perhaps I could just leave him in there...?

But no. I hadn't taken my shower yet (I realized with dawning horror) and there as no way I could get into bed without washing the days epic sweat off my body.

I had to go in.

And so I opened the door.

...Just in time to see Spizilla slip through the bathroom vent that I had absolutly NO IDEA was ALSO a window to the OUTSIDE!!

All my efforts up to this point, never opening my windows, keeping my doors locked and sealed, never leaving the front door open for longer than 3 seconds, spreading poisonous bug killing powder all around the apartment and on every window sill. I twas all for naught. Because all this time there was not just ONE way for them to get in but TWO!

Because my toliet room ALSO had one of these damned vent window things. (in japan, the room with the toliet and the room with the bath/shower are almost always seperate).

I believe I stared at the window-vent for several minutes, in dawning horror, (there might have been several curses involved as well), before I swept into action. Grabbing my spray, I sprayed the HELL out of that window, figuring that not even Spizilla would want to brave slipping through poionous vents.

But apparnelty Spizilla is either much braver, or much crazier than I first thought.

For it was just moments after I lowered my can that Spizilla leapted back through the vents, right before my vary eyes.

I don't know if my scream was from fear or fury. Either way I sprayed and smacked Spizilla like a fiend possesed, causing him to fall into my steel bathtub. Growing weaker from the poision (and realize that I'd already used at LEAST half a bottle on on him and he was still alive and kicking (litteraly)) he was unable to climb out of the tub.

Eventually, with more spray and more whaps, he finally curled up his legs and died.

Or at least mostly died. Everytime I tried to pick him up with the broom, his leg woudl twitch, and I would promptly drop him, for fear of epic Spizilla ninja skills.



Finally I just took my shower and washed him down the drain.

While I may have won this battle, the war continues on, as explained in my previous posts.

Fight the good fight!

Anyway moving on to other days.

So I talked about the social studies teacher here who speaks very good English and is a Shintoist right? Well after school he took me to see a festival-dance practice of 9th and 10th graders (junior high 3rd years and highschool 1st years), for obon. I got to watch the kids practice as well as meet the people who were kinda in charge of the obon festivities. One of them is a guy who I call NewYork-san, because that's how he introduced himself. (His real first/ last name starts with N and Y). He's a nice funny guy, and while he works at the hospitol, he also teaches the kids how to do the festival dance.

The dance is done in small groups of kids, each one with a little taiko (japanese drum) around their neck. They hit the drum and march about in ritualized steps and arm movements while shouting out the same basic thing over and over again. Then one of the older students or a teacher has a gong that they ring over and over, to keep time, and two other adults each carry a very tall (like 12 feet at least) flag with what I think was the town's name written on it.

Anyway I watched the rehearsal, and I promised to come and watch the real thing when they had it that weekend, on Saturday. Now I thought that their dancing was going to happen at night (I was told between 8 and 11) because most obon festivities happens at night.

So imagine my surprise when I wake up Saturday morning to the sound of gonging and drumming. Realizing my mistake, I rolled out of bed and quickly dawned my clothes and ate a quick breakfast, to go find the source of the gonging.

The kids had broken up into 3 or 4 differnt groups, each with 3 adults with them. Working as these separate groups, they troop around town doing the little dance, dressed in old timey uniforms.

The purpose of the dance is to entertain the dead who are still lingering in the area and to help calm them so that their spirits can reach the other world by the end of the Obon Matsuri.



While all the kids in this group are male girls are allowed to get involved. This year however only three girls from my school volunteered. Most kids don't really want to do this, because its hot and tiring haha, which is perfectly understandable. I was walking around with one of the groups for most of the day, and I was hot and tired by the end of it, and I was wearing summer clothes and sneakers! Not these robes and straw sandles.

After watching the above group, I decided to wander about the town to try and see each little group. Eventually I foudn them all, including the one group with the three girls from my school, and NewYork-san, who had done his best to explain things to me in the rehearsal (even though he only speaks the Goto-dialect of Japanese). While I didn't have to, I decided to stick with this group and wander around the town with them, doing a bit of off the cuff anthropology. They didn't mind. The adults, NewYork-san and the two other older men who were the flag carriors, seemed surprised and pleased that I was taking such an interest. THe kids were too hot, tired, and just a tad bit grumpy to care haha, but they also seemed to be having fun, and by the end of it I was entertaining them, just a bit, with my bumbling Japanese and interest in their dance.

It also really paid off to stick around, because they even let me participate! So as they wander around town, each group has a list of houses they are supposed to stop at and do the dance for (these are places that have had love ones they lost, I believe). Then the families there will donate a little bit of money (whatever they can afford). The houses are kinda spread out though, and hte group has to walk between them. Anyway for the last 3 or 4 houses I got to participate! One of the other adults had to run off someone, and he was a flag carrior. So he gave me the flag to carry. The children dance around the flag (and thus the flag carrier) so I was really and literally in the middle of things.

As we wandered around, I was really kinda getting into the beat, in that I was tapping out the gong's chimes against my leg or with my foot or whatever (one time I even pretended to have a gong and chime along with Newyork-san (the gong player for this group) which brought much amusement to the kids and the adults). So for the last big dance, Newyork-san was like "Here you go" and gave me the gong to play! I was rather nervous, because the gong pretty much tells the kids how to dance, but I did pretty well if I do say so myself, and it was alot of fun!

Alrighty almost done! Sunday night!

Newyork-san, impressed that I was so into learning more about Japanese culture, told me that Sunday night (and I confirmed repeatedly the "night" part) there was going to be another bon festival activity at the Buddhist Temple here. I told my neighboor about it, as well as a friend of hers from college who is visiting her. We'll call him NF (Neighbor's Friend). Anyway both of them were intrigued as well, so we headed on over there Sunday evening.

The temple was definitely alive with activity. First everyone trooped into the temple proper, were the buddhist monks there chanted a rather long prayer, and people could come up and breath in the incense and add an offering for a prayer of their own. We didn't go up there, but just watched from the back.

In the courtyard of the temple were I think six of what I'll call the Spirit-Boats (the boats that are built to put the spirits of the dead on, so they can be sent off into the water to the other world.) These spirit boats would be put onto carts, and then they would disperse to differnet parts of the town, stopping infront of whatever houses that wanted to give an offering.



N, NF, and I were just sorta trailing along as the boats were put into carts when NewYork-san found us! He was one of the people encharge of getting one of the boats through the town. He gave us each a paper lantern and lit the inside (everyone who was helping with a boat carried one of these lanterns), and then got us in to help pull one of the boats around! The boats had ropes attached to the front, where several people could grab with one hand and help to tug along the boat, while others pushed from the back or sides. The boat wasn't really that heavy, and there were maybe a dozen or so people helping so our help wasn't really that needed, but it was really cool to be part of this festival, and not just looking on. We helped to pull the boat all over our section of the town, before finally tugging it over to the harbor. Our work was done now, and we became spectators once again, watching as all the baots came together and were hoooked up together, and then hooked up to the back of a motor boat, to trail along behind it in the water.

On the motorboat were a few people (NewYork-san included) who made a big show of putting back and forth in the water, the spirit boats trailing behind, and setting off fireworks from the boat. Then, finally, the motor boat and the spirit boats started to head out, heading west (I think) to help the spirits on their way.

It was very fun, a mixture of solumn goodbyes and happy partying. And I feel like participating in those festivals helps us Jets to become more insiders, and not just outsiders looking in. Either way, it was a great weekend! (Despite that I don't have internet still *SOB*)


That's basically the end! Though here's some random pics for kicks:

My workplace. This is the teacher's office, all the desks. Can you guess which is mine?



And the upstairs of my apartment:






These pictures by the by were taken while I was still in the process of unpacking Its cleaner now, i swear!

I'll post the downstairs some other time.