There Snow Way

Sorry I didn't post it earlier, but finally a post about Sapporo and the snow festival.

So, the Sapporo Snow Festival was high up on my list of things I must do in Japan. I even knew when it was ahead of time. I usually know my schedule well in advance and usually have to decide what days I want off well ahead of time. (Though apparently I can switch them pretty last minute with no real consequence). But I didn't have my schedule for February for a while. And most of my money was being consumed by my massive Christmas trip. So I waited to book my flight and hotel despite the obvious consequences I foresaw. 

Sure enough, by the time I began to look for a flight, prices had skyrocketed. Like $1,000 high skyrocketed. It was almost cheaper to fly back to Chicago. I wanted to go, but not that bad. I tried going to a travel agent and everything, there was simply no way.

Then my friend posted on Facebook about a last minute decision to fly to Sapporo and how happy she was. When I asked her, I found out about discount airlines that could get me there and back at a huge fraction of the price. All I had to do was go to Osaka and fly from there instead of Fukuoka. 

So I booked a flight and figured maybe I would find a hotel.

No.

But this is when I came up with a brilliant plan: CAMPING!

I figured my sleeping bag I already had would be fine, but I would need emergency blankets as a back up, and a tent. And then manga cafes as a back up back up. However, no one in Japan seemed to sell them. I asked all kinds of stores.

I was going to try to one more place when I realized I was supposed to fly Friday morning, not Saturday morning and thus had to be in Osaka that night. So I had no chance to buy a tent, but I asked my friend if he would drive me to the local Shinkansen and thus I would also have time to go to the outdoor shop next to it for emergency blankets. Instead he drove me to the much farther central station in the center of the city and I had to take a train back.

I finally arrived in Osaka and found the hostel eventually. My flight was really super early because I wanted to maximize my time, so I discovered I would have to wake up at like 4AM. It was already late, so some people were sleeping in the room. My phone was on silent, but I figured it knew better since I was setting an alarm. I vaguely remembered my alarm not ringing last time it was on silent mode and this causing problems before, but I dismissed the thought by blaming it on "comfort mode" and decided not to test it lest I should bother someone.

And then I slept.

And I slept.

And I woke up feeling fairly refreshed.

Which terrified me. 

I looked at my clock and sure enough, it had been ringing quietly to itself for two hours.

I jumped out of bed and grabbed all my things and ran out of the place. There was no way I could catch my plane. It would be departing before I even got to the airport bus. 

I got to the bus depot and waited, then I got to the airport finally. The only available flight online was late in the evening and I was already missing a lot of time, so I asked one of the counters about flying standby. Sure enough it was possible, but it was super expensive. Nearly twice my original ticket. All other seats were taken, so it was my only choice. 

I waited for a little while then decided to ask a different company. They had no open seats, but for nearly the same price as my standby ticket, I could fly premium class. So I decided to go for it.

Between my original plane tickets, the train tickets, and the new plane ticket, as well as expenses I made before the trip, I had almost no money for the rest of the month or even the rest of the trip. But at least I got to sit in a cushy lounge for a bit.

When I arrived in Sapporo, I was greeted by a massive snow storm. The person next to me suddenly got chatty and said how he didn't want to go outside and that it wasn't like this last week. I was excited of course.

I had to wait for my knife to show up at baggage check. I had to check it in alone because I had tried to avoid checking in luggage because my original airline charged a lot to have checked in luggage. Or at least if you didn't request it ahead of time. So they gave my knife a giant box all to itself. Finally, I got it and set out.

The biggest problem with Winter is not the cold, but the heat. I was stuck on a train for forever while they blasted the heaters. I had no where to sit so I just suffered in the heat with all my luggage.

Finally we arrived in Sapporo. It was awesome. I felt like I was back at home. 

Being in the South means that despite everyone's constant bitching, it is never very cold and never snows. But Sapporo was covered in it, and it just kept coming.

I decided my first goal should be to find somewhere to return to for sleep at night so I wouldn't have to search in the dark. The park seemed like a likely choice, but it was closed, but near it was a great place. The snow only added to my ability to stay out of view.

Shortly after I found my place to sleep, the guy I met in Osaka messaged me and asked if I wanted to join him. I said I would, but it sounded expensive, far, and like everyone would leave before I got there. I set out to meet them, but along the way I accidentally stumbled upon the main part of the festival. I decided to check out the festival instead.

I wandered around, looking at the snow sculptures through the snow and enjoyed some strange hot vegetable milk. I went all the way from one end of the festival to the next. The statues and things were pretty cool to look at, but didn't take much more time than the time it took to walk a few blocks. Some people were repairing them or even building new ones even though the festival was ending soon.

When I finished looking at all the statues, I decided to wander around the city a little more, but then got close to the other major part of the festival. I found my way over and looked at all the ice statues. While the main part was mostly snow sculptures, this was all ice. There was also nowhere to walk to look at them up close as they were built on the median of a busy street.

They took even less time to look at and I headed to a McDonald's to recharge and get warm.

I considered sleeping in the McDonald's, but decided to go with my first plan and I found my way back to my camp site.

I finally found the location I had selected earlier. It was still blizzarding, so I had choose a spot under an open gazebo behind a sign. The sign would provide camouflage and cover. I climbed up into the snow and laid out my things for sleep. Unfortunately, much like Japanese buildings, the city proved to have poor insulation, and the temperature plunged. I tried to sleep for hours, but eventually I had to concede defeat.

I got up, tried to pack up my things, and headed to the manga cafe I had designated as a back up. Just as the rumors said, staying at one was cheap. And it was fairly comfortable. They even had a shower. I got myself a computer room to get some sleep. Before I did that though, I walked around a bit and peered over the low walls of some of the other computer rooms. Sure enough, while most people were also sleeping or doing mundane things, there were a few rooms where people were watching porn.

In the morning, I set out, bought a new memory card so I could take more photos, and went to go see the rest of the festival. My friend from earlier tried to invite me to some chocolate factory which sounded like a huge waste of money, but I wanted to see how it compared to the one in Germany. So, despite knowing that they would probably be done by the time I got there, I went anyway. Sure enough, I was right. The place was not only rather new, but there was nothing factory about it. Tickets were incredibly expensive, and all you got to see was a few rooms of irrelevant things. They still have the obligatory colorful fake gears spinning  in the windows though. I foolishly bought a ticket to make (well, decorate) a cookie, and by the time I had found my friend (in the cafeteria, having finished the tour without me), I immediately had to go make the cookie. So, the whole trip I only saw him maybe a minute or two.

The actual cookie-making process was pretty lame. You got tubes of white or milk chocolate, which was difficult to use. You could use them to write and attach smaller cookies in the shapes of things. I had been speaking some Japanese and the foreign lady next to me asked if I wanted my picture taken. I blanked on how to say, "Nah, I'm good," and made the situation kind of awkward, and she told me she could speak in English if I needed, which only then made me feel defeated.

I ate the extra material and left feeling I had wasted a lot of time and money. I headed to the last part of the festival, which was out at the sports dome. When I got there, I quickly realized it was the children's part. There were tiny rides and small slides and snowman building and all kinds of kids stuff. There was a marimo stand though, so I bought some for my friend. I kind of wanted my own, but I was running out of money.

I walked around, saw everything, then headed back. On my way back, in a 100 yen store, I managed to find Japan's closest approximation to emergency blankets. They were massive and didn't look as effective, but I figured it would lead to a more successful camping experience.

I wasn't sure what to do with my time, so I wandered around and saw the parts I already saw in the light. I then tried to get tickets for the Hatsune Miku concert, but realized they were rather expensive and distributed by lottery. I then spent like an hour and a half, going from one end of the festival to the next because I kept reading the map wrong where the concert was. I had thought maybe the sound would bleed through the walls or maybe there would be a TV broadcast or something. There wasn't, and I wasn't even allowed into the gift shop without a ticket.

I then set out to try some Sapporo specialty food. I found the famous ramen street and looked at all the shops. I saw one shop with miso ramen, the special ramen of Sapporo, but there was only a foreigner sitting inside. I wanted to avoid flooding the store with foreigners, but it looked like my best bet to get miso ramen. Shortly after I came in, the guy began to talk to me. Apparently he helped build shinkansen and lived in Chicago like me. Shortly after, another foreigner came in. They made jokes about how this was the only place with an English menu. The new guy had apparently traveled the world and seen many small places and festivals. After we parted ways, the first guy joked how he wished he had that kind of money.

I camped out at the same McDonald's again until it was late enough to try to get some sleep again. I tried to find where I had stayed last time, but couldn't seem to find it and got a little lost even. Fortunately, I was still in Japan and thus had GPS. I found a pretty suitable spot, and since there was no wind and it wasn't snowing and I had finally bought emergency blankets, that this night would be successful.

It wasn't. This time I remembered to dig out a flat place to lay, but the emergency blankets were pretty useless and the cold seeped through the tarp, sleeping bag, and blankets pretty rapidly. After only a few hours, I had to give up. I went back to the manga cafe again. This time, all the rooms were booked, so I had to sleep in a chair without a room. It was still better than nothing, and I was able to get some sleep.

The next day, I tried to go to the Ainu museum like I had wanted. It was a bit difficult to find, but I found some Ainu community center instead. I wasn't allowed to take photos, so I was a bit disappointed, but they were doing some kind of workshops so I tried to participate. There was basically just a few old people speaking in Japanese, making fairly useless-looking things in a corner, and a TV that had some really repetitive Ainu dance going. There was a man making some kind of carven wood things and I was sat down by him to make such a thing.

I was pretty awful at it, and the right-handed tools were a bit of a problem, but mostly my lack of skill. At one point, he had to erase the whole thing and I had to start over because I did so bad. Eventually I made something passable and found out it was a string holder.

I told them I was interested in learning Ainu so one of them took me up to where the museum and pamphlets were stored. The place was closed because it was Sunday. The guy asked what I was interested in, gave me some pamphlets, explained something to me, showed me where the museum was and turned on the lights, said something (presumably to turn off the lights when I am done), turned off the lights, then walked away. Instead of taking the chance to look at the museum (which was only a single room it looked like), I followed the guy. He then talked on the phone for a bit, then asked how long I would need. Instead of going and looking at the museum like I wanted, I said I was done, thanked him and left. I felt pretty stupid for not understanding what had been said and for missing my chance to see the museum.

I then decided I had seen and done everything I was going to be able to do in the city and left for the airport. I bought some souvenirs, as is required in Japan, and then tried to check in. When I checked in, I had to do something about my knife. Unfortunately, my discount airline would charge a ridiculous price to check in the knife, so I had to mail it. Which was also super expensive. I didn't even use the knife.

I finally boarded, flew back to Osaka, spent the night, and went home without further complication. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, two of my friends were staying at the same hostel as me the floor above me. I only found out afterwards.

I got home and was glad to be back in the warm South where they still sell flowers outside, though without insulation or heating in my home, it didn't make much difference.

Could You Speak Up?

So a few weeks ago I was freed. Freed from ever having to hear those speeches again.

A month or so ago, the students began preparing for a speech contest they wanted to enter. Though the teacher translated the speeches for them, they had written them themselves. I was in charge of checking and correcting the translations. The first kid's was a pretty good speech. It was about the power of conversation and how to help the Fukushima victims by talking to them.

The other kid, not so much. Her speech was very strange, but at the same time, that made it very entertaining. It started out by being about what defines adults, which apparently is anyone who lies especially if those lies are "filthy". Then it temporarily became a story about her father leaving her before becoming some imperative about being honest. Also apparently "children know everything."

Her speech had plenty of emotion - sarcasm, hyperbole, poetic words - but it turns out teaching kids to speak with emotion is a lot harder than you'd think.

She later told me to be very honest about it. I told her it was kind of weird, to which she said "I knew it!" and mentioned something about writing it in a day.

The boy wanted to practice once or twice a week, but the girl wanted to practice every day. In fact, she would start practicing whenever she saw me. I was glad to see her so enthusiastic and to finally be doing something worthwhile. Even if it meant staying later.

The boy read his speech like MS Sam. But even worse. His pronunciation wasn't terrible, but everything was read with no tone, like a robot. And at first he couldn't pronounce English exclusive sounds like "th" and had difficulty with "l"/"r" and "v". But each week, he was much better.

The girl didn't start out as bad, but didn't make as much improvement. Not to say their speeches didn't turn out pretty well in the end, but progress was slower than I had expected. I knew it would be hard to teach pronunciation. If it were easy, they'd be doing it already. But I tried. It was a lot of repeating the same word over and over again followed by the inevitable "I got it!" and then realizing it is still wrong. When you hear things too long, semantic sedation begins or worse - you lose the ability to hear the differences yourself.

I figured teaching them emotion and using their hands would be easier. The girl's speech, like I said, called for a lot of emotion. But no matter how many times I explained how to make a sentence sarcastic, she'd say it normally. I had even long given up using English in the interest of time, so it wasn't like she didn't understand. Even at the very end, her sarcasm wasn't what it needed to be, but it was better I suppose. She also read her rhetorical questions like real questions, which sounded weird. In fact, she turned a lot of her regular sentences into questions by means of tone.

Teaching them all this pronunciation and tone caused me to learn about such topics. I had never needed to think how to make something sound sarcastic before, I had always just done it, but now I feel like I know what makes it have that distinct sound some people don't pick up on. Pronunciation, too, I researched. So now I know words like alveolar sibilant or voiced dental fricative. And I know that "r" is an approximate while "l" is a lateral approximate. Unfortunately, none of this actually helped.

So, eventually, they actually pretty much memorized their speeches (after reading them 10,000 times, I'm surprised I don't have them memorized, too), and we went to the competition.

I got there early, so I sat in on part of the Junior High School competition. I guess they picked a story to read or something and had to memorize it. There were like 15 of the same "Red Demon and Blue Demon" story. Which got boring quick so I sat outside.

Eventually my team showed up. We found a room we could eat and practice in. Again, I didn't realize that lunch wasn't going to be provided. I don't know why I keep thinking it would be. So I went to go get some.

By the time I got back, they had started practicing, and also my ex girlfriend have snuck into the room with her students. When she ducked out for a bit, I told the Japanese teacher how unlucky we were to have picked the same room. One of the students, upon hearing who she was to me, decided to hunt her down probably as some attempt to learn my type of girl, but was stopped by the teacher.

The people I had been staying with had shown up with their kids and had begun practicing as well.

During our own practice, my students kept forgetting parts of their speeches, which was bad considering the contest started in a few minutes. The girl still didn't understand tone, but it was much better. The boy's hand gestures were ridiculous, but at least he wasn't standing boringly.

The teacher came up with the good plan of practicing on stage. So we went to the stage where someone else had had the same idea. We sent our students up after, and we stood in the back to force them to speak loudly. The girl went first, but kept asking whether to continue or not, the Japanese teacher seemed concerned, too, but I had figured we could go all the way through, so I kept telling her to go on. Until one of the other teachers in the room, a balding, plum foreigner, suddenly turned around and asked if we could share a little more. So I told the student to stop at the end of the paragraph, then the girl from the other school went for a bit, then our second student went for a bit, then that first girl had all the rest of the time to herself, which I found a bit unfair but didn't care enough.

As the students came back to us, the bald one tried talking to my girl student. She had no idea what he was saying to her fortunately. I also noticed him talking to another girl, but thought nothing of it.

So, the contest started finally.

Participant one went up and started to speechify (that's a word now). Her accent was great. Her volume was  great. She was doing well. Until she forgot some half of her speech. She jumped from the first third of her speech down to the second third or so. And she knew it.

Soon she began skipping other parts. Or looping back up into earlier parts of the speech. Her nervousness got to her.

Eventually she actually formed a loop where she kept saying a large sets lines over and over.

She sat down defeated, it was not a good start to the competition.

However, the people to follow her were also incredibly forgetful. Almost all the students skipped lines or needed to have a line given to them. My friend, the other teacher, had begun texting me how this was one of the worst debates he had seen and that the kids aren't normally this forgetful.

My male student was second. He went up, and sure enough, he also needed some help remembering his lines, but he did really well.

Later on, my other student went. She also did pretty well. And this time I remembered to actually record it, although I don't think she nor anyone else cared.

The bald guy had like a whole TV crew and everything. He had a camera on a tripod, and also one that he brought around and changed angles with when his student was presenting.

Hell, they even had jackets!

So, the speeches ended, and there was some time for the students to come and rush back to their teams while they judged or whatever. So the students came back and started telling us how much fun they had, which is awesome. I was super happy to hear they had enjoyed it.

On their way over, the girl had to pass the bald team again. When I saw him trying to talk to her again, I joked to the Japanese teacher he was probably a pervert. When the student reached us, I joked with her too that he was a pervert, and she said she agreed. The teacher told her not to believe what I said, but the student said she actually thought that, which I thought was pretty funny.

The girl that went first was slumped over in her chair, presumably crying, while my friend (apparently from her school) tried very poorly to cheer her up. She was flailing her arms like someone who was pissed at a baby for crying and couldn't figure out how to solve it. I felt bad for the kid.

The girl somehow got onto the topic of boys again and to divert attention to myself I pointed to my friend across the room and offered him, but she said she didn't like his face. I told her she should tell him that since he would certainly know it was my doing, but the teacher tried to stop this plan. But eventually, she too became an ally to the plan. However, I had kept pointing to the guy, so he noticed and began coming over. My student caught him halfway and tried her best to tell him she didn't like his face, but then began pleading that I put her up to it. He of course knew and walked over smug as always and sat and talked with us for a bit.

Eventually the ceremony began. The students had to return to their seats. They decided to start with some speeches or things of advice or whatever. The first speaker was some foreign Kyuushuu college professor who had given presentations to us before. I think he is a bit of a show-off with his Japanese. His advice was all terrible. He complained none of them started with "Good afternoon", said hand gestures don't belong in a speech, and said no one uses "Thanks for listening" in English. Then he translated it all in a show-offy way. The next speaker did the same English then Japanese thing, and the last one just presented in Japanese. It really bothered me because if you can't even use English at an English competition, where can you use it?

So they presented awards backwards, starting from 1st place, but after they had all 10 places gather on stage. So there was zero suspense or interest. The TV crew team were dashing around, getting all kinds of angles. Naturally, their student won. My students didn't place, but it was okay. Now that I think about it, that kind of puts them really close to last place since so few came. Oh well, they had fun.

So we all gathered up and I decided to depart with them, but I had to recover my things from the place I had been staying. So I followed my two friends back to the place and we talked about the contest. Apparently, the bald guy had said something to presenter number one that threw her off, some kind of off-hand compliment, and that he was always a problem. Apparently their school fights dirty and treat their kids poorly when they fail so sometimes contests are rigged to help them win. Or so I was told.

We headed back, and the girl complained more about boys. I wanted to treat them to a restaurant, so I talked the driver into it. I wanted to try a lot of food so I ordered too much, but I had planned to pay for everything. However, the teacher ended up paying for it, and I forgot my money in the car, so I couldn't stop her. During dinner, we talked more, and somehow I ended up becoming the girl's father in her imagination and she wanted me to marry her mother, so now she calls me "Papi" which sounds pretty Italian.

We then split up, and finally I was able to go home and never hear those damn speeches again.

Except they converted part of the speeches into catch phrases. >.<

The Good, The Bad, and the Naked

So, my post on the speech contest and sleeping in the snow will have to wait because, by popular demand, I need to write down the events of last weekend.

But first a relevant complaint about how no one tells me anything until it's too late.

So, as a JET, we get a certain amount of days off and only work a certain amount of days a month and stuff. Somehow I wound up with an extra vacation day in February and had to decide when I wanted to use it. There was some kind of PTA meeting / half day being held on Saturday so I was scheduled to come in. They advised me to take off that Saturday, but in my never-ending futile quest to gain recognition and acceptance in the workplace, I decided I would attend, and instead took off a Tuesday.

So I stayed home, cleaned, whatever.

The next day I got an invite to a festival in Okayama. The fabled Naked Man Festival I had heard tales of.

One problem, it was on PTA day. So my only option was to waste one of my precious paid holidays if I wanted to go and be there reasonably early. The festival was at night, but it was a few hours away.

Fortunately my friend was moving out and back home to that very city that very weekend. I eventually did decide to take the day off. But I had made the decision too late to join the other JETs going, but thanks to my friend, I got to join the Japanese teachers' team. My friend's mom also helped me by going and buying the outfit I needed.

No one tells me things in advance (if they tell me at all).

So, I take the day off and my friend and I set out to drive off to his home. Except unfortunately, I had gotten really sick. And hiccups.

And let me tell you - I really really really hate hiccups. Once I get hiccups, they come and go for some three days or so.

But they even let me go home early from work; said I had stayed after so often that it was okay. So it was nice to hear they appreciate my efforts.

It was a long drive. Some five hours. We finally got there and I could barely stand, I just wanted to sleep. Instead, his mom wanted to give me a tour and ask if I wanted to eat or shower or various other things I clearly did not need. I wanted to sleep.

Finally, I was allowed to sleep. Not a moment after I put my head on my pillow, my hiccups decided, "No, fuck you!" And I was forced awake for who knows how long while I waited for them to heal.

I woke up pretty miserable the next day. They tried offering me food every few minutes as if I hadn't turned it down a few minutes before or as if some new food would somehow make me interested. The festival was later that night, and it was a strenuous one, so I needed to be healthy or I could get severely injured. People had died before.

So I kept trying to get more and more rest and took naps and occasionally tried to eat while my friend's mom seemed to call everyone she knew to talk about how I was going to participate in the festival even if it killed me. Which was looking like a distinct possibility.

Eventually I did heal enough to stand properly and could mostly breath. I had a pretty awful cough, but I figured I could survive one night of nudity in Winter.

They took me to the base camp, some ramen shop or something where everyone had gathered. After spending all week listening to Taka tell me how I had to drink to stay warm, then his mom every few minutes telling me, then these new people telling me every few seconds I was getting pretty pissed off.

Obviously, they have no concept of respecting what people want to do or any knowledge of the effects of alcohol on the human body. Alcohol doesn't make you more resistant to cold, it makes you more vulnerable. It constricts your blood flow. You just FEEL warmer. Also, I was sick.

So, I spent the first twenty minutes trying to stop them from pouring me alcohol as they completely ignored me.

Everyone was drinking and eating nabe and everything for a while. I met some of  my new team. They were pretty cool guys and I use the title "brother" with them now.

Eventually someone came in and he decided it was time. He took off his clothes and someone got up and started putting on his fundoshi - the diaper-looking this that sumo wear, and tabi (the socks with the big toe separate [also it had some kind of sole to it <though it was quite thin so rocks were painful>]).

Never mind that women were still in the room.

In fact, they continued to stay after this. It wasn't for a while until the next person decided they were also ready to get naked.

The girls started to clear out finally. One of the girls was taking pictures of the event, she trailed a little behind, but she eventually left, too.

During this time, my new Japanese friends/brothers had begun to tell me how small their penises were. Obviously I never asked, they just decided this was information I wanted to know. And to prove it, they decided to show me. And other people's.

Which is strangely not all the surprising having lived in Japan for six months now. Though usually it is the other way around where I am approached randomly by my male students and told that I am "big" / "big American", as that is apparently the limit of their English.

The fundoshi is not something you put on by yourself, so I had to have help. I got naked, but then partway through the process, they realized something was wrong, so they had to take the cloth outside and refold it or something. So I had to put my pants on for a bit.

Then get naked again so they could try again.

It was a lot of spinning, but the end part is the hilarious part.

You have to grab onto something because they pull upward on the cloth running under you enough to lift you off the ground and get it up really really really tight.

The tabi socks were taped on so they wouldn't fall off and I was ready to go.

Fortunately, I am from a much colder climate that these Southerners, so I was okay. The Japanese complain about the weather regardless of what the weather really is and never take any precautionary measures like insulation or not having colossal windows or worse yet - opening them in Winter.

I got bored and wandered outside once where the girls were, talked for a bit, went back in, was taken back outside by my new brother to get my picture taken by the girls.

Inside was entertaining because the 20~25 people were all in various states of putting on their diapers, so you could always see someone being lifted up and hear them screaming.

Finally, eventually, we set out. We were forced to wear coats since we were getting in cars. The girls were driving since they didn't drink. The drinking limit is 0.0 in Japan. I went with some guy one of my brothers reminded me every few minutes used to be his boss and some guy driver. His car had a TV in it for the driver, which seemed pretty dangerous.

Eventually we found somewhere to park and gathered up. Some of them had already disrobed and I wasn't going to lose to anyone, so I did, too. The girls were in charge of the coats, so I gave one mine, and she put in on.

Despite wearing like 10 coats, she complained about the cold.

Eventually we formed lines. Which was fortunately kind of warm. We marched and chanted while the guy in front whistled. And occasionally someone on the front line threw sake on us, which was unfortunate.

The socks were thin, so rocks were a problem. Before we had reached the temple, someone had managed to cut his toe, but he seemed proud of himself despite his sock turning red.

We would occasionally stop to cheer in front of crowds. And in a few places, we stopped and tossed people and took pictures.

They were many fans that came to see us, and I high-fived a few. There were a lot of cute Japanese girls that were excited to see a foreigner.

Eventually we reached the temple.



This is when hell began.



We marched in, did some more cheering and throwing, gathered up again and marched on to the right. This is when my brother told me, "Are you ready for freezing water?"

No.

We marched straight into a pool of water.

And by march, I mean we jumped and splashed the person in front of us.

We had to circle some kind of fountain in a horseshoe-shaped pool.

It was the most painful thing in my life.

And I have seen an entire episode of Big Bang Theory.

I thought that if we could just go up on the platform, I could be warmed by all the people gathered.

Except the suffering wasn't going to end that easily.

We had to circle the entire platform. Halfway around, priests sprinkled ladles of water on us.

We got to the beginning again and decided to do some more throwing and some kind of circle.

Finally, we climbed up on to the platform. I was excited that we would finally be where it was warm and I figured the event would start soon.



Instead a new form of hell began.



I was pulled about a third into the crowd, which was apparently a good spot. I was glad to be more towards the center since the possibility of tumbling off the platform was very high. However, I had gravely undercalculated the power of 900 people pressing against each other.

The people moved like waves. One moment, they surged forward, the next the other way. I tried to resist. I didn't want to pushed off, but finding footing was a constant struggle. I also feared my feet would be crushed.

Other times, the forces collided on me and I was crushed, gasping for air. As my teammates said, if my arms fell below the crowd, I could have been pulled under.

People were pressed into me with incredible force. There was no where I could go. The person behind me had his arms wrapped around me as he reach upwards.

Once my arm fell below everyone's heads, I could have very well have had it broken.

Steam began to rise as priests above us sprinkled us with water from time to time.

The stood up on a deck above us. Along with the priests was a man with a red searchlight and a laser and another man with a megaphone saying something. I wasn't entirely sure what they were saying, but fortunately it was never directed at me either.

Some time later, men in suits complete with flowers and a ribbon showed up to look over us. And a foreigner even for a little while looked down on us from above.

It felt like a science horror movie. We were a swarming mass, gasping for air. In front of me, a small man was pressed up against someone's chest as he struggled to keep from being pulled under.

Arms were everywhere. At times I could see almost nothing, sometimes they covered my face completely. Sometimes chins were painfully pressed into me or my face, or arms into my neck. Sometimes hair was forced into my mouth. My contact rolled over, blinding me in one eye, but even the smallest of movements were almost impossible. Fortunately somehow it fixed itself.

It went on for seemingly forever. The crowd swayed back and forth and crushed me in every way, while those on the deck yelled down to us and threw water at us and pointed a laser and searchlight at us.

My cough got worse and even my hiccups returned for a bit. I thought I might be in real danger. Many times I considered trying to figure out how to escape. But I had come all this way and I didn't want to disappoint. I couldn't imagine being the only one to walk out into the open with the large crowd gathered to see the festival see my failure, so I stayed and prayed that the ceremony would finally begin.

And yet it went on and on and on.











It seemed like an eternity.

Priests came out with the sticks we were supposed to capture. If you made it off the platform with the sticks, you would win money.



But they just stood there with them.
Taunting me.





But finally.



Finally. Finally they said the ceremony would start in ten minutes.




And after another short eternity,
the lights went out and they tossed them.

A short flurry of action happened,
and finally the crowd began to give way.
In its stead, however, the cold returned.

Though most of the crowd disappeared fairly rapidly, the brawl continued for a while. Men were against the wall, praying while a crowd fought over something I couldn't see. Occasionally, the crowd would press them or me into the wall with a crushing force. I did my best to stay on the outskirts. I had made it this far, I decided I would stay until the end. However, my teammate, the boss, found me. I had forgotten they had told me about a meeting spot. But they mistook me for participating and thought I had fought until the end and were proud of me.

We climbed down from the platform and we left the temple. My tabi were browned by being stomped on so much, but it didn't appear I had been injured, which was a relief.

We regroupped with everyone and I got my coat back and made our way back to the cars. The boss told everyone how I fought until the end. Apparently one of the men had managed to get a hold of a set of sticks and stuff it in his underwear, but someone stole them from him. Another grabbed them, but only broke off a small chunk, which he still had.

We drove to go eat ramen. I was still sick, so I could barely eat, but I did my best. Eventually, my friend showed up to pick me up, and we regaled him with tales of the night.

He drove me home and I took a nice, long shower. I had gotten a bunch of bruises, but nothing was broken or cut fortunately. Then I finally got some sleep.

The next morning, I realized how much damage my feet had taken and, for a while, I had to slide my feet to travel. I was still sick, but a lot better. I went with my friend and one of my festival brother and a friend of my friend to a "world" buffet the next day. Then we went to an anime shop, and I headed home.

I was asked quite a few times how it was.

I told them just: "suffering."


_____________________________________________________________________________

Pictures for the incredibly brave (or the foolish):
http://oi45.tinypic.com/2rnftzm.jpg (Front)
http://oi49.tinypic.com/14u87b7.jpg (Back)

Tourture

So I finally got a video tour of my apartment now that I am willing to consider it complete. I wish I had done a tour when I first moved in, the place was quite a fixer-uper so I wish I could have documented the changes. I spray painted the handles on the cabinets, removed all the hooks on the walls, bought tons of bookcases, bought a water heater, got rugs, installed a shower head, got curtains, removed the pink linoleum, replaced my chair, bought lights, installed grass, and cleaned a ton, to name a few improvements. 

I forgot to show the classically Japanese lights off, but oh well. For those that don't know, one pull turns them on, two turns off one of the rings, three pulls turns on a little light in the middle, and the fourth pull turns it back off.

The movie is like the Japanese language - you'll need to turn your head. I got motion sick watching it, and I am sure you will too!

I'd Hit That

Recently, I've been hanging out with my nearest foreign neighbors and my Japanese friend. Which means we've been eating out a lot. A lot a lot. Often we go to a restaurant  eat a ton, then go to a second restaurant to eat more. Needless to say, my wallet is unhappy. We also tend to order the ridiculous menu items like the ten-patty burger or the secret king-sized gyuudon.

But on one fateful night a few weeks ago, we decided to go a small restaurant by my base school I used to frequent because I don't know how to cook. Since then I have given up and just rotate between McDonald's, Mos Burger, and the convenience store. However, on this night, we decide to go there. It turns out there are a bunch of Japanese people drinking there. At first we were ready to leave, but they invited us to join them.

Needless to say, they didn't speak English, and my friends, while they have made tremendous progress, came to Japan knowing almost zero Japanese. But everyone seemed to be able to communicate. The Japanese people took a great liking to us. They continued to give my friend tons of their finest alcohol.

Towards the end of the night, we were taking pictures (which they claim they brought to my school for me) and talking, and they told us about a mochi pounding event nearby. I was super excited. I thought I had had missed my chance when I was traveling for New Year's (I did get one offer to pound some mochi, but they told me about it well after I had left). They insisted they we must come, and I was definitely very excited to do so. I didn't quite understand how to get there, but they gave us the name of the place in kanji and I figured I would figure it out later.

Fortunately, that wasn't foreshadow, and I was able to figure out where it was. Though we did get a bit lost trying to reach it. We arrived right about on time, and they were super happy to see us. They told us they were glad we protected our promise. They also kept their promise that we'd be on TV.

Incidentally, I'm not pictured in any of these.

The arrows protect the tree or maybe the whole area from spirits.

They let us pound some mochi, which was fun. My technique was pretty bad the first time, but I mastered it the second time. One of the girls was pretty entertaining to watch because she looked like she was going to fall over every time she swung. We were being recorded for the 5:20AM local news. We were also interviewed. I expected it and answered the single "how was it?" question I got, as did my friend, but the girls were asked additional questions, but didn't understand and also gave botched answers or "I don't understand Japanese." I was a bit jealous I only got one question.

Then they let us roll the mochi. I was pretty bad at it and I still don't completely understand what I was supposed to do. They let us eat one, but it tasted pretty plain. (Later they let us eat some strange super sour version of mochi, which was interesting, but I never want to eat again...)

The women hid under newspapers and rolled mochi all day.

Tons and tons of mochi.

You were supposed to take a small piece of mochi they gave you and put it inside the bigger chunk and roll it or something, I never figured out how to do it right.

For some reason, at some point they decided they needed mini-mochi so they started making those, too.

They continued to make mochi for forever. Hours and hours.

They kept going for like 8 hours. But we were freed up to go on a temple tour. One of the priests (I think) lead us around the temple and showed us stuff. We even found old WWII bomb shelters in back.

Apparently they closed off the tunnels to keep kids from getting lost in them. They didn't look like they'd provide much cover though really.

They erected some weird face they erected in front of the temple.

They decided to make some kind of super strange and super sour mochi.

The ingredients that went into it, I have no idea why anyone would ever come up with this combination...

Then came the food. And more food. And more food. Also, alcohol. They kept filling my friend's cup. They were pretty impressed with him.

The BBQ was delicious; they kept trying to feed us so much. And they introduced everything as "This is Japanese... [item]!" "This is Japanese... RADISH!" "This is Japanese... TOFU!"

I stumbled on some ceremony.

They brought out the Fall festival cart thing to show us. They insist we come to the festival, but I'll be gone by then unfortunately.

They eventually started making strawberry mochi, which is pretty good. And a lot less plain.

Eventually, because one of us was sick, we had to leave. They invited us to more events. It was great we luckily met such great and fun people.

Seeing as it aired at 5:20 in the morning, I didn't watch it on TV, but a teacher recorded it for me. And for the past week I have been getting a lot of "I saw you on TV!"s from coworkers. These people need to sleep more!

The teacher that recorded it had her husband do it, so when it didn't work, she didn't know how to fix it. Fortunately the recording is still saved, so I'll have to figure out a way to record it to something more permanent later.