Kawasaki- Daishi, Yokohama, and the Marine Festival

This past Monday (Marine day), I went to two different festivals (sort of). Monday was a national holiday for Japan known as Marine day. Marine Day according to Wiki:

"Marine Day" was declared a national holiday in 1995 as a day of gratitude for the blessings of the oceans and to hope for the economic prosperity of maritime Japan. First observed on July 20, 1996, the Happy Monday System (ハッピーマンデー制度 Happī Mandē Seido?) legislation moved the date from July 20 to the third Monday of July from 2003.

I decided to take advantage of this and go to the "festival" being held in the Minato Mirai area of Yokohama (or what I like to refer to as downtown Yokohama) and the wind chime festival being held in Kawasaki- Daishi.


When I got off the train, the environment was a little surreal. It almost felt like I was back in Kyoto. Kawasaki- Daishi is a very traditional area that is mainly comprised of the Heiken-ji temple complex. Every year, Heiken-ji has a wind chime celebration, and I toted myself out there to go see it.


The main shopping strip was pretty filled with people. Every where you looked, there was food and traditional items being sold alongside the wind chimes.


The temple complex itself was packed with people. This is a view of the complex looking down from the steps of the main temple building. You can see the smoke from the incense "cauldron" in the center of the image.


As with every celebration in Japan, there is a TON of delicious food being sold. I indulged in strawberry shaved ice and okonomiyaki (a type of egg omelette).


All in all, the wind chime festival was awesome. I only stayed for a couple of hours as there wasn't much to do, but it was still really cool to go see. I also compiled some short video clips together that I took while I was there.

After the wind chime festival, I headed south towards downtown Yokohama to see fireworks and the events being held at the Marine festival.


Monday was the last day of the 3 day long festival and there were supposed to be fireworks and a lot of performers and cool things going on. The fireworks never happened (they were cancelled for some reason) and there really weren't any events going on either. The official website, which can be found here: http://www.yme.gr.jp/index.html, lied. Not knowing the fireworks had been cancelled, I knew I had to kill some time to wait for them to happen. The Pokemon Center of Yokohama was having a little festival as well, so I decided to head towards Landmark Tower. First, I passed through Cosmo World, seeing as I had never been there.



Pictures weren't really allowed in the area (to my knowledge), but I snapped a quick one with my phone. I bought a cute little clutch that I now keep my phone and flip cam in alongside my key and passmo, and they were handing out free shitajiki (pencil boards) at the entrance. The Pokemon Center in Yokohama is just as awesome as the one in Tokyo. Also very cool is the Moe Garden shop next door and the Jump Shop. The Moe Garden sells all Studio Ghibli items and the Jump Shop sells all Shonen Jump things. Pretty cool and very moe. :3


After leaving the Landmark Tower, I stumbled upon another magic show going on (this was actually the 3rd one I saw in a day). Magic shows in Japan are quite different than ones in America. Here, they comprise of magic, balancing and juggling acts, and small feats of acrobatics. They also typically have some sort of balloon animal routine involved. I guess they are more like jack-of-all-trade shows, really. This guy had a huge audience though. I didn't really stay to watch. :/


After all of that, I waited around 2 hours for the fireworks to start, which never happened. The Marine show pretty much was a bust, but it allowed me to see parts of downtown Yokohama I had never been to before. I did take a series of videos though.

Feeling the heat

So here it is. I'm playing catch- up again. I'll just get right into things.

Rainy season has been pretty light this year, which might sound good to some, but other (such as myself) that just spells bad news. The rain doesn't just bring humidity, mold, and the dreaded ごきぶり (cockroaches), but it cools the otherwise hot summers in Japan. It has been pretty hot here (in the low 90 temps) in Yokohama some days. Doesn't sound so bad compared to the 100+ temps in Texas right now, but they have air conditioning in their buildings. Two little wall fans in each classroom filled with almost 40 students isn't cutting it. In fact, there is a rule at me school that they have to do mandatory tea breaks once durign each class to prevent heat exhaustion. Crazy. This is my first Japanese summer and definitely won't forget it.

The good news! I can wear more casual clothes thanks to the heat and the government's "Cool Biz" campaign. A lot of the teachers come in t-shirts and jeans (though you won't see me doing that). I can also bring a water bottle around the school and connect with other teachers and students by joining in the chants of "熱い” (it's hot!). I also now have this hot pink towel I dampen with water that keeps me cool and gives me bonus points for knowing some common Japanese knowledge of a way to keep cool in the summer. This will be over with soon and I can have cold weather again.

Also connected to the weather is the fact I've had a sunburn for almost two weeks. It sucks. I did, however, learn about buying sunscreen and Aloe in Japan and how vastly different the two products are from their American companions. First, I discovered both are very watery here. Aloe doesn't even come in a gel in Japan. It is more of some green, watery mixture. Sunscreen comes in an aerosol can or in a bottle. Remember those large bottles of sunscreen you can buy in America for around 4$? Think of the travel size of that same sunscreen and that is the normal size of the sunscreen bottles here. The cost runs about the same cost for 1/3 of the size (400￥ to 1000￥ pending on the store and brand). Through experimentation I've discovered the aerosol cans don't work for me. They are a waste of money (hence why I'm burnt). Nivea has become my staple sunscreen. It's not too runny here.

In other not related to summer news, I've started taking basic Japanese classes though Maxceed (Interac). They are every Tuesday night and are progressing quite well. Last week we learned から (from opening）and まで (to closing). After the lesson I made it a goal to try and find the Aloe I needed for my sunburn. The store clerk from Family Mart told me that they didn't have any Aloe, but Create (a drug store up the street) should sell it. Since it was around 9:00pm, I asked what time Create closed. Needless to say, I felt accomplished being able to use the lesson I had just learned less than 30 minutes prior and the store clerk understood me.

Check the next update for my Tokyo trip I took the end of June.

The Walk, Puzzle and other adventures

Last weekend I walked to Futamatagawa to see if the Seiyu (Walmart) had any summer clothes that would fit me and would be work appropriate. Unfortunately, I have a very limited working wardrobe (aka things that can cover my tattoo). Most summer things are low- cut V necks, which won’t do. It’s very frustrating. Anyway, when I was there not finding any clothes that fit properly, I looked around the rest of the store. I finally found a good metal tea pot and I also stumbled across something I thought would be time consuming…

I ended up buying an Alice in Wonderland puzzle. It was expensive, but I thought to my self “Hey, it’s 950 pieces. This will take me a while to finish. This will be worth the money.” By noon the next day, I had the puzzle finished. Boy was I wrong. The thing is huge too. It’s not like it’s a small puzzle. It was just easy. Now I really want to finish that stupid Snow White puzzle that I couldn’t complete while I was at Ringling. :C


On the walk on Saturday, I got sunburned. I’ve become so pale from winter and no longer living in Florida. I don’t mind it, I just hate sunburns. In other news, I’ve decided 2 very important things. I’ve figured out that I’m going to open up another bank account in Japan and that I’m going through Shinsei. I’ve also figured out that I’m buying a goldfish. I really miss having pets in my life. Goldfish are cheap, easy to take care of and most important they cute. I’m working on getting all of the supplies.

Something else of importance has happened to me recently too. I just started taking Japanese classes. Interac/ Maxceed just started offering classes this past Tuesday until March. We were told the classes will go through the summer too if we want. I will of course be taking two weeks off of the classes to travel around Japan with my family though. The classes are from 6:00- 7:30 every Tuesday night. Last night I got home around 9:00. I’m taking the beginner course and although I’m one of the most advanced students in the course, I really need the formal refresher. I also know that I missed a lot of the basics the first time I formally took Japanese and I’m making up for it now. There was a really pretty sunset from the view of the Radio Nihon building.


On an unrelated note, I’ve started trying to make some recipes from home. I made potato salad. My next task is to make tortillas for Tex- mex night. OH YEAH! I already have the ingredients.

Yokohama. Holiday. Melon Slushies. Art.

Yesterday was Yokohama day! I’m in love with Japanese holidays. Since I don’t get 2 ½ months off for summer vacation, the mass amount holidays make up for it (mostly). Yesterday, I cleaned my apartment and balanced my budget. Fun times! It’s always fun trying to figure out the bare minimum one needs to survive monthly. I have monthly student loan payments to make, which amount for almost half my paycheck every month. Needless to say, it’s a buzz-kill.

On Wednesday, I did an hour of karaoke by myself. It was my first time to do it and I will probably do it more often. There aren’t many places where you can sing at the top of your lungs and not be embarrassed. In Japan I’m thinking there are 2 places (as an adult): karaoke and live concerts. The best part about my karaoke place is that it is all you can drink free soft drinks and they have melon slushies. SO GOOD. The price per hour is 280en too so it is a really good deal. I love the melon slushies! Here’s a short clip of me singing an Ikimonogakari song. I love them.

I also wanted to post a newsletter from the PTA I received this week. Most of it is blurred out because I wasn’t sure what I could and couldn’t show as far as privacy. This is a list of all the teachers from my school with what subject they teach. I’m the only one not blurred out. The two people with the little text blurbs are the principal and vice principal of the school. They are talking about how wonderful the PTA is.


Next week I go back to my other school (the one with the taiko club) and maybe I can get the students to film me being an idiot trying to learn the drums. Tonight, I stayed late at school to record the student’s listening tests. I also got to draw for 30 min with the art club. They were doing landscapes and this is what I contributed. It was fun drawing from life again. I haven't had a chance to do it in a while. Very good practice.



Also- check out the huge azalea bush near one of my schools.

Saturday's Group Photo

Karaoke Passout

This past Saturday I was supposed to go see my friend Judy and her friends compete in the Dragon Boat competition. The Dragon Boat race is an annual competition in Yamashita park where people race in traditional dragon boats from Hong Kong. More can be found out about it here (in English): http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090616ev.html

Or here (in Japanese): http://www.yokohama-dragon.com/

Since the race didn’t happen due to being rained out from the ever- encroaching typhoon (which I’m not sure has happened or not due to the lack of severe rain) everyone ended up meeting up at the karaoke place near Kibogaoka station. LUCKY! It was around 700en for around 3 hours. CHEAP! I’m super in love with this place. I took a short video of the fun. I had a blast! I love love love karaoke!

One of Judy’s friends sang a song called Secret Message and all of the characters were messed up on the screen too. We were dying. XD

After karaoke, we went to the house of Judy’s friend. Her husband made us this amazing meal. I felt like royalty. We met up with more people there too. I didn’t end up getting home until around midnight. Saturday was so amazing… so amazing I slept most of Sunday. :3

Yesterday, on my way home from work, I took a video of what I see on the train from Futamatagawa to Kibogaoka; just one stop. I had my phone pressed to the window to steady it, but most of the images are still blurry. I’m going to try and take the same video with my flip cam and see the difference in image quality.

And finally as a general update, here are some random images I’ve taken around town and a video in my apartment.

Ebina

After posting the last entry, I remembered that I never mentioned what my previous weekend was like. WELL- after going to the wrong train station to meet up with a fellow ALT, I ended up in Ebina for the first time. I arrived just at sunset and took some amazing pictures. Toho Cinemas is there, so I decided I'd see a movie. I settled on Black Swan. :D

Taiko sickness

Quite a lot happened last week. I got to see 2 taiko performances given by my JHS taiko club (that I’m a forever “new member” of) and I got sick. Though I have to say, for every new experience that I have, it seems I’m always behind my self-expectations. I was hoping I would know how to cook a lot of Japanese food, be fluent in katakana, and have some Japanese children’s books translated by this time in my mind but… I’ve been here over 2 months and I’m nowhere near completing any of those things (well the katakana thing is improving A LOT). I can now read a lot of foods and signs that I used to just look at puzzled. I am also learning where and when to purchase the cheapest foods in my area and what a good deal is (ie: getting a “loaf” of bread for under 100¥).

So back to the taiko thing- I recorded part of the ichinensei’s dance routine from my phone. I tried to record the encore performance that the sannensei’s did, but the file didn’t save properly. I was kinda bummed about that but I took 2 pictures also and a small video of what the little festival looked like too. I only stayed for about 2 hours, but I had fun and the students were glad to see me there.

The taiko performance happened on Sunday and on the Thursday before, after teaching passive tense to the sannensei’s, I got really nauseous and sick to my stomach. Around the same time, I started to get a headache and felt really clammy. I ended up leaving school early and sleeping the rest of the day. I went to work normal on Friday, but obviously wasn’t as energetic, drank a lot of water in between classes, and sat more than normal. After school Friday I slept and slept all day Saturday as well. I also loaded up on medicine for those 3 days. Tums and Tylenol Sinus. Yeah. I was feeling great! Actually by Sunday, I was feeling well enough to support my taiko club, but I’m glad I wasn’t asked to perform in any way. I would have probably vomited everywhere.

My Apartment

This is actually the second video I've taken of my apartment, but the first I'm posting here. This was also a test to try out the camera function of my Android phone. I normally film with an old flip cam.

Tired. Hair cut. Percussion.

I can’t tell you how exhausted I’ve been this week so far. Being an ALT is the first full time job I’ve ever had. I’m being childish when I say this, but I’m hating the responsibility of having to show up every day. With school, I could always take a sick day whenever I needed extra sleep or just really didn’t feel like going to class, those days are over. When I feel exhausted, I have to show up anyway. I haven’t been sleeping well. There have been earthquakes in the middle of the night and even without them occurring, I keep waking up 3-4 times a night. FRUSTRATING! I’m so tired, yet my body won’t relax.

On an unrelated note I’ve been here almost 2 months. That means 1 thing absolutely needed to be done. I needed a haircut. I finally got the nerve to go get my haircut on Monday. Needless to say, that was an adventure. I went to the place probably 50m from my apartment. It is literally the building next to the parking lot of my apartment complex. The lady didn’t speak English and sorta gave me a brand new cut when I just wanted a trim. It only cost me 1,000en though and the cut doesn’t look bad by any means…. So I can’t really complain. Lol. I was grateful that I didn’t walk out of there with a shaved head with how poor my Japanese is. XD

Yesterday, towards the end of school, I had nothing left to work on, so I decided I would find the drumming I could hear in the teacher’s lounge. On the other side of the school, another floor up, I found the percussion section of the brass band! They were excited I dropped by to see what they were working on and told me I had to play drums with them… so I did. They taught me the first part of a song they were working on. I botched it up pretty bad towards the end, but had a lot of fun. I tried explaining that I had only played drums once in my life back when I was 11 or so and it was just for fun. They didn’t care and insisted I try again. Lol. After I hopped off the drums, they told me I should play chimes too. This was really cool because I had never played chimes before. I played Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and thanked them for the experience. Chimes are set up completely different than a piano. Upon leaving school yesterday, the rain started up again. It rained all through the night and was pouring this morning. I’m hoping it clears up soon.

I’m caught up again with the blog! Yay!

Golden Week

EDIT: BLOGSPOT CHANGED MY POST AND DELETED MY PICTURES SO I HAD TO RE-DO THIS ENTRY. ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY!

Oh god. So here I am behind in writing this thing. I really need to make sure I stay up to date with this otherwise you will continue to not hear from me for a week or so and then have a ridiculously long-winded post about the things I’ve been doing. I’m currently typing on a Japanese keyboard so forgive me if there are misplaced apostrophes, etc.


On that note, Golden week just passed. For those of you that don’t know, Golden week is a magical week where 3 holidays managed to land on the same week! Yay! That means I had Friday off and then the following Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I still had to work Monday and Friday, which was a pain, but that’s still better than having to work the whole week. During Golden week, I had plans to visit the zoo, Sankeien garden, Tokyo, and maybe go down to Enoshima to see the aquarium. Well, it rained on Tuesday and Thursday of Golden week. What a bummer.

Since I had Friday off, I went to the zoo. I figured I might beat out a lot of people in going because I figured some people would be traveling all day to their destination of choice (IE people from Kyoto visiting Yokohama). I’m not sure if I was right or not because Zoorasia was packed. I still had a lot of fun though. I was able to get very close to see a red panda and some tanukis; closest I’ve ever been.




Besides all of the cute animals, the zoo itself is cool. There is a huge natural area and the enclosures are quite large and nice for the animals. Zoorasia is a lot better than I’ve seen at most zoos at least.



On Monday night, I met up with Gwynnie and Jeff. They are both ALTs from Hamamatsu. I was really excited to meet them finally! I’ve been reading Gwynnie’s blog for almost a year now. I met them at Kannai station and we walked to China town from there.

We found the Seiryuu gate and Jeff was kind enough to take a picture of me with the Hello Kitty panda statue. It only took me 2 years to get that stupid picture. We bought bubble tea (mango) and Jeff and Gwynnie bought a fornicating panda sake set. I lol’d so hard. We also found a giant tea kettle.




On Tuesday, I moped around my area of town. It was rainy so I went to one of the local coffee shops and drew some pictures. The coffee wasn’t the best and neither was the cheesecake. I had fun though because the barrista was nice and they were playing old british music. Needless to say, I probably won’t be going back there. There is one other coffee shop locally owned in my area and it is attached to a book store. I will be checking that place out probably this weekend. On Wednesday, my couch arrived. Afterwards, I tried to make it to Sankeien, but there just wasn’t enough time. I decided I’d just go back to China Town. Back at Chukagai, I found the Genbu gate. All that’s left for me to see is the Byakko gate. I blame Fushigi Yugi for this obsession. I ate some delicious veggies and wandered back home.




On Thursday, I went up to Tokyo. I wanted to hang out with my friend Mat again, but my phone died and I was on the other side of town from him. I still feel kinda guilty about that; miscommunication and bad timing. This was my first time in Ueno in a really long time. I think the last time I was there was in 2006. I had been around the area (Asakasa, Nippori, Akiba), but not actually in Ueno; the park. The park was lively with street vendors and a lot of people hanging out and having fun. I was there to see 2 exhibits: Rembrandt and Tezuka.


The Rembrandt exhibit was amazing. I was able to see the same etchings printed on various papers side by side for the first time in my life. The etchings had been distributed around the globe and are in various collections. Having been to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Rembrandt House in Amsterdam, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and seeing a good portion of these pieces before you would think that the exhibit wouldn’t be as fascinating, but being able to see these pieces together was amazing. There were also pieces from the Louvre and various museums in France and Britain alongside some private collections in New York. This was one of the best Rembrandt exhibits I had ever been to. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures, so here are some pictures of the outside of the museum.




The Tezuka exhibit was not nearly as awesome and I also wasn’t allowed to take pictures. Having been to another Tezuka exhibit in 2009, this one didn’t hold up to the last one. The exhibit was on Buddhist art and featured works of Tezuka’s comic Buddha. The exhibit was small, but was very interesting and after having studied Buddhist art history, it was cool to see works from Pakistan and Afghanistan in real life. There were also various statues and sculptures from around Japan.




After the museums, I went to Akiba to try and find this maid cafe Sara (bffl. XD) told me about. The cafe I was searching for was staffed by men dressed as women. SO! I thought I found it. I ended up going to a cafe called Mai:lish. Now, if that doesn't sound like the right place... Anyway, it turns out all of the staff were women and the place is well-known from being in an anime series called Stein's Gate, which I've never heard of. So that was the 3rd maid cafe I've been to (@home cafe, Cos-cha, Mai:lish).

After Akiba, I met up with my friend Matt (not Mat who I mentioned before) who lives in Hadano and is also an ALT with Interac. After some frustration about trying to find him and his friends, we met up briefly and discussed how things have been going. It’s interesting to hear just how different our experiences here have been. I think it’s mostly due to the fact he is a man and he’s living in a small city.

Friday I worked and Saturday I cleaned my apartment, bought groceries and chatted with a friend who just graduated from my college. Congrats Ringling 2011! YOU DID IT! Saturday was crappy cause it rained all day and I thought I was going to do laundry. On Sunday, I was able to finish cleaning my apartment and do laundry. I left my laundry out to dry and made my way up to Shimokitazawa to see my old dorm manager/ friend and his wife. It was the first time I had seen them since 2009. They just moved from Osaka up to Shimokitazawa and were having a sort of house warming party. It was a lot of fun seeing them again. We had coffee and donuts and Miyuki cooked some amazing food. I have to get her recipes. OMG. SO GOOD. :D


I found that I really like Shimokitazawa. There are a ton of indie shops and cool people with really laid back mentalities. It reminded me a lot of Boston. Hopefully I will be hanging out with Justin and Miyuki more often ‘cause going up there was a lot of fun. Shimokitazawa concluded my golden week. I may not have made it to Sankeien and Enoshima, but I still had a lot of fun and met some awesome people.