Sara- Time Warp to September 2008 (Yabusame Festival)

Well I finally got the video put together. I hate Apple iMovie and this may be the last movie I make with it.
Anyway, back in September 2008, Patrick and I skipped work to go see Yabusame which I believe is part of the two or three day Hachimangu festival...

Yabusame is archery on horseback. The ground for the event is blessed by the Shinto priests, and if I remember correctly, horse archery was not used only for warfare in Iwate, but it was also used as a way to scare off demons and so there were also priests at the event.

Sara-2008 recap

I said I would write about all my previous adventures, but I never quite got around to it unfortunately. So instead, I mashed up all the things I did into one movie. There is the all city track and field meet, Yabusame (horse archery festival in Morioka), the school festival and my trip to Yamagata with my teachers. I got the perfect music for the movie for Christmas from friends back home, G and Ryan. A big thank you goes to them since I wouldn't have done it otherwise. The music really sums up my feelings about 2008 I think.

Sara-Gyms, Nanowrimo, JLPT, General catchup

Well, sadly I have many things to post but I haven't. One day I promise I will. Since August I have seen and done many things, that I will later put up, but for now I will just give a very brief update of a few things that I have been doing.

I have changed schools. I am now at Kita-Matsuzono JHS in suburbia. It's about a 45 min bus ride with a 15 min walk to the bus station. That said, I shall now skip over to a briefing of the most current events.

Over the months, I have come to face the fact that I need to exercise. This became more clear when one day I was acting out the story of Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree to third grade elementary students. As I read and acted out the picture book, I realized that Pooh and I had many things in common. One, we like food. Two, we always are thinking about food, and three, we often find ways of getting that last dessert that might turn out to be a disaster.

After having read the story three times, I was beginning to feel a little guilty. Pooh, after all, went out and exercised...or tried anyway. So I went out to look at some swimming pools and gyms.

There are several swimming pools and gyms around Morioka. There's a gym called WoW'd, that stands for something like World of Workout'ed or something strange like that. That is in the new AEON mall that is close to us. However, the entrance reminds me of some sort of posh lounge for a restaurant. The walls are black and they have white leather back like couches and chairs. The people weren't all that friendly either and it was rather expensive. So my travels went to a gym called Central.

Central is not even a five minute walk from the train station bus center. And since you can hop on a bus to the station bus center from almost any where, it is very convenient. It has a swimming pool and gym with two studios where they have yoga, Pilate's, aerobics, Taibo (For those who remember the fad) and other fun lessons. They go by different monthly plans so you get to pick the plan that best fits you. I decided to go to Central because the bus from work ends up at the bus station. It was also cheaper than WoW'd and the people are very friendly. The plan that I got was about 9,700 yen a month, but this meant that I could use the gym or pool any time day or night (between 10am-11pm) Mon-Sat. as well as on Sundays and Holidays and they give me a towel for the shower so I never have to bring one. I can also join in any of the classes for no additional charge, and I can come and go to them as I please. They also have a squash court and lessons, but I never was a big fan. Anyway, more on the Gym later.

Besides the gym, I am participating yet again in Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month-www.nanowrimo.org). Right now I'm at 28,043 words and roughly 40 single spaced, times new roman, 12 point font, pages. So for future ALTs who want to do it, it is possible...I'm just very lazy. Also, there are several other people participating in it around the Tohoku region, so it is also possible to meet up and do write-ins or word wars, though the timing may be difficult.

Besides Nanowrimo, I'm also doing the JLPT. Last year I believe the choices were Sendai or Tokyo. This year, however, Iwate University (that's not more than maybe a twenty minute bike ride?) will be hosting as well. So, though Patrick and I were getting ready to go down to Sendai on Dec 7th, we have been assigned to the University site.

Next on the things to write about:
A trip to Yamagata (where they sell pears that are over 600 yen)
Archery festival thing (Held back in Sept. and may not be written about till next year...)
Schools (May not be written about)
And other events that I have, at the moment, forgotten about.

Sara-Akita trip

This past weekend, Patrick and I went up to Akita as part of my birthday celebration.
Patrick took me to the aquarium there. I really love aquariums, and this one was really fun. So I put together a little video.


After the aquarium we stayed at a very nice onsen (public bath house, one for men, one for women). An onsen is also a hotel.


We had a very spacious room with a good view of the ocean. The room was actually bigger than our apartments!


We had a great dinner of fresh sea food that they brought to our rooms.



The food was incredibly good. And the bath was very relaxing after you get over the shyness.
After dinner and our bathing, we met up again to go to a taiko drumming performance that was at a small community theatre down the street. I can't particularly remember the troupe's name, but they dressed up as Namahage (A type of demon/god of Akita). People usually dress up as these beings for various festivals in Akita. This troupe performed as Namahage as a way of preserving tradition and teaching their culture in Akita. Namahage are beings who would punish/take away bad children so when they performed, the Namahage would wander the audience yelling "Arrgh! Are there any bad children here today?? Are there lazy, or rude children?" Parents were told to hold tightly to their child to protect them from these gods. It was a really great show. The drumming was amazing and it was free. It is a must see for anyone going to Akita.
This is a brief video I put together of the performance. The last piece they performed, I believe they composed themselves. For anyone who is familiar with taiko drumming, you may notice the more modern sound.



The next day we had another wonderful meal. Breakfast was served in their dinning room. It was a traditional tatami mat room. We were the only ones there but it was nice to have a quiet and relaxing morning. After breakfast, we checked out and wandered around the small town and then took the train to Akita city, in Akita. We went to a small art museum and wandered through a nice park. We ate dinner at the train station and then took the shinkansen back to Morioka. Though it was a brief trip, it was a lot of fun.

Sara-Sansa Festival '08

From August 1st to the 4th, Morioka has it's Sansa Festival. Sansa is a type of traditional dance here in Iwate. There are many different dance troupes that perform during this time. Companies and neighborhoods put together troupes of dancers, drummers, and flutists. They parade down the main street of Morioka in their summer kimonos (yukata). Children and adults take part in the parade. Many families perform together. I saw some of my students participating as dancers for their neighborhood troupe. It's a very festive parade. Everyone dances, even the drummers and flutists. They also have an announcer who announces each troupe, and when the troupe gets to the finish line she announces "Thank you for your wonderful performance."
I have put together a brief movie with the original sound so you can hear the music. The dancers are chanting something like "Sakkora Choiwa yasse!" I'm guessing that this is from their local dialect, or something much older or a mixture of local and old Emishi. (The Emishi were the natives of Tohoku) I have heard that there are about 20,000 performers and around 5,000 drums. In the video you will also see performers wearing large flowers on their heads or a straw hat. Those are the traditional Sansa costumes.

Sara-Fourth of July and Wanko soba

So this past weekend Risa and Jura came to visit us. On their first night, Friday, Catherine, Patrick and I took them to eat wanko soba. Wanko soba is basically a soba eating contest. My record best is 100 bowls, but that night I could only eat 90.

All together, we probably ate around 400 bowls.
Then on Saturday, Catherine organized a Fourth of July picnic dinner for us and our other ALT friends in the neighborhood.

We had a lot to eat and we had a lot of fun. After the picnic, we then went down to the river and lit up some sparklers.

Catherine is holding a 'senko' sparkler. You have to keep it very still and it is very pretty. As Martin said, it looks like a sparkling holly.
Then to finish off a fun night, we all went to a local Karaoke and sang for three hours or so.

Sara-Miyako

This past weekend our Earlham friends, Risa and Jura, came to visit from Tokyo. During their time here, Patrick and I went to Miyako with them. Miyako is a small town on the coast and it's about 2 hours away by bus. We got bus tickets for 5,000 yen that was round trip and it included lunch, a boat tour, and local bus fair to get to the boat tour. Unfortunately I believe that this is just a limited summer deal. The food was great and the boat tour was amazing. It was an overcast day, but we had a lot of fun on the rocky beach and wandering the beautiful town.

ALT BBQ

Sara- This past weekend, Patrick, Catherine and I went to an ALT BBQ over at Iwaizumi, a town that's about 2 hours away by car/bus. There we met our friends Shannon, who is on Earlham's program, and Martin. Then we met the ALTs who were hosting, Caitlin, and Jeff. We had a great time. Patrick brought chips, Catherine made mac 'n cheese and sangria, and I made coleslaw. There was a lot of food and later we enjoyed lighting small fireworks. That night we spent at Jeff's family house.
The next morning, everyone but Jeff, who had work, went to Ryusendo Cave. It was very exciting and fascinating. I made a short video of it. After the cave, we went to another one just down the street. It was the science cave. The cave was real, but inside they painted some fake cave paintings from different parts of the world and there was a part where they had cavemen from Japan with Native American paintings in the background. It was very fun. Then on the way back we went to an ice cream shop that had very unusual flavors. I had Rose and Cherry blossom. It was delicious. Patrick had wasabi and pickled plum (umeboshi). The wasabi tasted like wasabi, just sweet as well-but it still burned in my opinion.

Sara-Baseball finals and horse festival movie

Today I had a surprise at work. Instead of classes the whole school went out to the big ballpark because our team went into the finals. (We lost, Catherine's school won. 0-1) So when I got back to work, I didn't have a lot to do to fill the time. After 3, I finished studying Japanese and by 3:30 I was getting bored of reading so I made this little slide show/video of the horse festival I went to on Saturday. Hopefully it gives a better idea of the main street. Unfortunately I was stuck to one place so it's not much. I replaced the sound of all the bells on the horses with music. If anyone really wanted to hear what they sounded like, just think of 100 cow bells, and hooves.

Sara-Chagu Chagu Umakko

Yesterday Patrick and I went to the Chagu-chagu Umakko festival. The festival celebrates the horses of Iwate/Morioka. 100 horses came and walked down the main street to a temple. The horses were elaborately decorated and children were riding them. Before the horses there were a few bands and other parade festivities, including a super hero. The horses rested at a river and there you could see them up close. However it was raining and there were thousands of people so Patrick and I left before seeing them close. The horses were really beautiful and it's definitely a must see for horse lovers.

Sara-Bone Fracture

On Monday, I went to the hospital because my foot had been hurting since the Tochigi trip. I went to the prefecture hospital and after about 3 or 4 hours, I learned that I have a small fracture in my foot. The cost of this was 4,000 yen. I also received pain killers and another medicine for my back pain for only 730 yen. So I have crutches from the hospital and I’m learning how to walk to school and move around the apartment with them. The teachers and students at my school have all been very nice and helpful.
I keep telling them that it just looks worse than it really is, but it’s been really nice to get the help. Juggling two crutches and two lunch boxes is not a skill I have. The great thing about the injury though is that I’m now working on my abs. Maybe after the crutches I can do 200 sit-ups without breaking a sweat. :)

Sara-"Spring vacation" in Tochigi and Saitama

From March 27-30th Patrick and I went to Tochigi and Saitama prefecture to see two friends. First we went to Tochigi to visit our friend Jura who is studying at a university there. Then Jura joined us to visit our friend Risa in Saitama. There, we walked up a mountain, but only a little way up because I had injured my foot earlier. Then we walked around the Tokyo area. We had dinner in Shibuya, and looked at the cherry blossoms. The following day we said goodbye to Jura and then Risa, Patrick and I went to the World’s only Parasite Museum. It was interestingly disgusting. We had a really great time and the Shinkansen one way was 13,000 yen from Tokyo station to Morioka.
Here are a few pictures from our trip. The fist is Patrick (green jacket) and Jura (red jacket) going up to see a Shrine while in Utsunimiya city (Tochigi). The next is an Izakaya (bar/restaurant) that we went to. We went to the one on the right that has たこ which is Octopus in Japanese. The next pictures are of cherry blossoms and a view from the mountain that we walked up while around the Tokyo area.

Sara-Field trip with Special Ed. Students

On Feb. 15th, I went out with the Special Ed. students because it was a test day and I didn't have any work to do. We first went to a small museum that had artifacts from the Jomon period which was from around 10,000B.C. to 300B.C. We made necklaces out of a soft stone that reminded me of chalk. We sandpapered the stone down until it looked like a tadpole. The man who was teaching us how to make them said that some have said that they might have been a charm of some sort, perhaps fertility, since they are also the shape of a fetus.
Then after the museum, we all went and ate lunch at a Karaoke restaurant. We had our own room and we sang and ate for a good two hours. We had a lot of fun.

Sara-Need a tutor?

Though I don't know much about expensive private tutors, you can get free private tutoring at the Aiina international center. (I'm sorry if this was posted before, I just can't remember at the moment) You have to fill out a form that you get at Aiina and you can fill it out in either English or Japanese. You write a little bit about how much you've studied, what you want to focus on, and when and where you would like the lessons. They will then find a teacher for you and get back to you. It usually takes between one or two weeks.

Aiina got back to me within a week, so now I will meet my teacher on Feb. 13th and I will report back on that. :)

Sara-Things to do other than study in Japan

Since it is the New Year, I decided that I have too much free time and that I can't stand sitting around doing nothing after school. So, I took out the binder that I got during our orientation in August and flipped to the page that had information on the various cultural centers in Morioka. Unfortunately some of the information was wrong, and there were no addresses. Luckily, one of my teachers(the assistant PE teacher) knew where one place was, and I remembered Japan's Yellow pages. It's called Town pages and you can find them in Aiina which is the international center. One B&W copy of a page is 10yen and color is about 50. However, you can't just pay and copy. You have to go to the librarian, ask to copy the page, and they will hand you a form to fill out. I learned then that it's better to find ALL the pages you want first before going to them.

The town pages were not easy to navigate through, but after a while, I sort of had an idea as to how it was organized. I found the cultural centers, ballroom studios, Traditional Japanese Dance classes, and calligraphy schools for Paul.

These are the three that were in the book:

JEUGIA- This center is in the new AEON mall. It's the furthest from me but, it is easy to get to because you can take a bus there for a cheep price from the train station. The classes here are not too expensive, many are for 4,200yen, and you pay only for the month so it is easier to quit classes. I plan on taking Flamenco here.
http://www.jeugia.co.jp/new_culture/centertop/mkcentertop.cgi?cid=27

NHK Bunka Center (Bunka means Culture)-This is a cultural center that is close to where I live. It's in the downtown but it's not really easy to find because it is a small building. However, they have many classes both in the building and outside. They are more expensive, and the classes are not for one month. Many are spread out, so you would take 6 classes in 3 months(2 classes per month).
http://www.nhk-cul.co.jp/school/morioka

Terebi (T.V) Iwate Academy-This is a small school and they don't have many classes, but this is next to the city hall and in the downtown.
http://www.tvi.jp/academy

Town pages website- http://www.itp.ne.jp

But the cultural centers and the town pages were not my only resource. My kyotosensei's (Vice Principal's) wife knows many people. She introduced me to her tea ceremony teacher (and so now I take classes there) and when she heard from her husband that I was looking for a Traditional Japanese Dance school, she introduced me to her friend's mother who is a teacher. In other words, teacher's at the schools probably know many more people in the city you live in than you, the centers, and the town pages.

And aside from knowing people, they are very friendly here and they like and want to help me. When I asked my third grade English teacher about how to make a polite phone call to see a ballroom dance class but not make any commitments, he quickly said "Oh don't worry, I'll call for you." I then said that I didn't want to trouble him etc. he just laughed and said "Really, don't worry. I enjoy calling people and I don't get to do it enough."

So, with all that said and done, you can look at the various pages for the centers and look at the various pictures for the classes. And the really nice thing is that whether you want to take a class at a cultural center, or at a private school,studio,etc. you can and probably should ask to just go in a see a class. The teachers are all very nice about it and you can easily bow out by saying "Thank you, and I will think about it. I just don't know what my schedule at my school will be for this year."

Thanksgiving (Written by Patrick)

The four of us had Thanksgiving together with the Earlham students on the SICE program, their host families, and many other people who have some tie to Earlham.

When I was on SICE, we only had four students, so the Thanksgiving was rather lacking. This year, however, with about a dozen students on SICE, we had a comprehensive selection of both Japanese and American cuisine, including cranberries (!!!) and mashed potatoes. Chicken took the place of turkey, but that's just because turkey is outrageously expensive here.

Unfortunately, there are no pictures of the feast because I think that in our hunger we all forget to bring our cameras.

And although Thanksgiving is not a holiday here, we had Friday off, as it was some variety of labor day.

Patrick- First snow of the new season

Last night it was melting on contact, but when I woke up this morning (the view from my backyard, as it were):

This is a Kotatsu

Dear all,
I talked to my brother earlier and was unable to accurately describe a kotatsu so I took some pictures to use as visual aids.


This is a whole and complete kotatsu. It's made up of a table, a futon, and a zabuton which is a futon that goes under the table on the floor.
This is a picture of the zabuton with a cushion on top of it that you sit on and the large futon lifted up. You sit on the cushion and cover yourself with the big futon. It's very snug and warm.
This is a picture of underneath my kotatsu. The heater's is on the bottom of the table. The cord leads to a switch.
This is the switch. You can turn the heater on and off with it. The temperature control for the heater is on the side of the heater itself so you can control the temperature from just warm to really, really hot.
This is a better if slightly sideways picture of the heater. You can see the temperature knob.

The heater shoots out heat which is then trapped by the encasing futons and then you can put your feet and part of your legs under the table and get all toasty warm.

I hope that this has been a helpful description of a kotatsu.

Cheers,
Catherine

What Morioka Castle Once Looked Like

Since Morioka still advertises it as a castle town, though the castle was destroyed, I was always curious what it looked like. Well, thankfully, I found these posters at my school during the cultural festival which give one some idea:

Sara- Hachimangu Festival

Patrick and I went to the Hachimangu festival on September 15th. The festival is for three days, from the 14th to the 16th. The 16th was also a national holiday (The day would roughly translate to 'Respect the Elderly day'.) so it was a day off for everyone.


Hachimangu Festival is the festival of Hachimangu Shrine which is of the Shinto religion. (Shinto-shrines, Buddhism-temples)
Unfortunately I don't have any information about the festival but it was very fun to go to and beautiful to watch. They have an evening parade of floats down the main street, and on the 16th, they had an archery on horseback ritual performance. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out the time for it and missed that but hopefully I will see it next year and post about it. The archery is called Yabusame and it is a very traditional and time honored practice.

Here are some pictures that I took.





The floats are very elaborate and you can see the male kabuki like figures in the front and the women figures were on the back of the floats.

The large orange gate way is called a Torii and it is the gate way for all Shinto shrines.




Inside the grounds of the shrine, there are many food and game vendors. As you can see, you have the typical cotton candy vendors, but you also have game booths such as 'Kingyosukui' which translates to 'Goldfish scoop'. You get to scoop up live goldfish and you can keep the ones that you catch. If you have the bad luck of not getting any, you usually get to keep one. Unfortunately, I couldn't take a picture of such a booth, but there's also the 'kujibiki' booths where you pay to get a scrap of paper with a number. Then you get the prize according to the number.
There are also food booths so Patrick and I had dinner there by going around and trying out different foods. Here's a yakitori booth (shishkabobs-usually chicken).
As you can see, there were a lot of people there, but that's only half of the booths and people at the shrine.



































At the shrine, there are many places to pray. This is a little shrine but I'm not sure to what god it is dedicated to. Then there were the Zodiac shrines which are the tiny round stones that are hollow inside. Inside you would see the figures of each zodiac animal. Patrick and I went to see the Rat shrine.
Then this is Hachimangu. It is very big and perhaps you can not see, but there are long thick ropes that hang down. These ropes have bells attached to the top and you throw in some money into a collection box, then ring the bell, clap your hands three times and pray or make a wish to the gods.
There were also dancers at the shrine.