It turns out I am not a vociferous blogger. Monday and Wednesday we went to the Hofu Tenmangu shrine to take part in a yearly festival. The street leading all the way up to the shrine, as well as the steps, are lined with candles. We got there a little late on Monday after having dinner at a grill-your-own-meat place. The waitress didn’t speak a word of English (which is a lot more common than you might think) but we managed to get a large plate of (mostly) delicious meat. At some points, we used the awesomely awesome free Japanese dictionary on my iPod Touch (thanks Mom and Dad!) to do some stilted question-and-answering about our meal. Afterwards, we went to the festival, and we probably shouldn’t have eaten because the food at the festival was SO good. We visited our old karaoke man and got some slushies. Other food at the festival involved: long grilled hotdogs wrapped in a thin layer of egg, covered with ketchup and mayonnaise; grilled octopus; Pikachu-shaped pancakes; fried chicken; sticks of grilled meat; and baby bottles full of some kind of drink. The best part of the festival was probably the fact that we MET OTHER ENGLISH SPEAKERS! We met Anna, another English teacher in Hofu, her friend Naoya, and their friends Yayoi and Toru. We also met a girl named Andrea from Miami, but she was leaving literally the next day, which was unfortunate. We passed some time overlooking the city after the festival had ended and then they took us to a bar called Laughable(s). We’ll probably be spending quite a bit of time there.
The festival was by far better on Wednesday, the final day. Many more people, many more stands, and best of all, the old people karaoke from Monday had been replaced with HOFU CITY GANGSTER RAP, complete with dancing. It was AMAZING. I think Steffany and I were the only two people in attendance that understood how funny this was.
Thursday morning we left for Kenchou – the main governmental building of Yamaguchi-ken, where we had our contract signing ceremony and orientation…. again. That night was a dinner/allyoucandrink/karaoke party. It was pretty fantastic. I really like our prefecture so far! I sang my first karaoke song, Wannabe by the Spice Girls. I think I officially enjoy karaoke, but only when alcohol is involved. We went to another bar afterward, and then I crashed in my awesome $50 single at the business hotel (the Super Hotel – in Japanese, the ‘supaa hoteru’). The next morning involved an endless stream of orientation. We crashed afterward, and 4 of us decided to stay another night to explore Yamaguchi city a little more.
Friday night we went to a lantern festival that has apparently been going on for 450 years. Theodorou family: imagine if the Italian festival in greenpoint involved a much shorter pillar of lanterns being hoisted by a million Japanese men wearing white short shorts. The festival was obviously much bigger than the one in Hofu, but same deal – tons of delicious cheap food stands. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we had yet again eaten at a grill-your-own-meat place for a ridiculously cheap price so we weren’t too hungry.
The next morning we made our way over to a 5-story pagoda. “Pagoda” is NOT a Japanese word, as we discovered the hard way in the cab. Regardless, it was the most beautiful place I have ever been. I never imagined Japan would be as luscious and green as it is. We ate our breakfast on a stone bench next to a giant pond in front of the pagoda. We spent the morning wandering around the pagoda and its accompanying ceremony before trying to figure out what to do for the rest of the day.
We asked the information booth at the front if we would be able to find a tea ceremony but apparently this was impossible. However, something to know about Japan is if you ask someone for any kind of advice, they will probably spend the next 10 minutes drawing maps and conferring heatedly amongst themselves to give you the BEST possible advice. In this case, a woman walked us down the street, went to her car, and gave us each miniature fans (fans are a necessary part of life here) and postcards before further walking us to show us the way. We ended up getting lost and asking a pharmacist for help, at which point he walked us the entire 3-4 blocks to the restaurant. The restaurant itself was less than stellar, but decent. We wandered around the shopping area until we caught our trains back.
Sunday involved finding the OTHER mall in town. It's called "You Me Town" but it's pronounced "you-may" town. I don't get it. I picked up some tupperware and other miscellaneous crap from the 100 yen store and had some icecream that kind of had no flavor.
Monday was pretty uneventful as well. And today is Tuesday.
Tomorrow, depending on how we feel, we may be spending half a day in Hiroshima before catching our 8 PM overnight no-toilet bus to Tokyo! We arrive in Tokyo Thursday morning, and we leave Sunday night (again on the overnight bus). We're staying one night in Roppongi (6 trees) and 2 nights in Asakusa. I really did not give Tokyo a fair chance during orientation and I'm missing big city life although I imagine being in a big city is scarier than a small city when you barely speak the language. One of those days will be spent at Disneyland Tokyo. All of those days will be spent battling rain from typhoons! With any luck we won't float away, and Tokyo will stop having earthquakes... at least for 4 days. Amanda, if you're reading this, I suspect our feet will feel pretty similar to how they felt in Rome when we got poured on.
Anyway, I probably won't be updating since I won't be bringing my computer so this is goodbye for now!
No comments:
Post a Comment