A festival just for me? Aw, you shouldn't have!

July 31-Aug. 3

So far my free time in Himi has included a lot of unpacking, sorting through the stuff in my apartment (there are a ton of useful things left), and cleaning. I’ve also gone biking around town a few times with Alex and/or Cody in order to start getting a feel for the place. John’s parents have been visiting so he hasn’t had as much time to hang out yet. We’ve found some interesting places around town. My favorite so far is definitely the indoor gymnasium that has this amazing net playground. Naturally I had to stop and play in it and I had so much fun!

I probably had way more fun than I should have up there.

Unsurprisingly, I seem to have the same luck with bikes that I do with cars. On the first bike they gave me to use, the front brake cable just snapped suddenly as I was trying to stop. Luckily I didn’t crash or anything but it’s been less than a week and already my mode of transportation has had to be replaced.

As I mentioned in my last post, this weekend was the Himi-matsuri. This particular festival doesn’t really seem to have any deep meaning, it’s really just a chance for the town to get together and celebrate…I like to think of it as my Welcome to Himi Celebration! On Saturday Alex and I first went and explored the vendors that were lining the main street. We decided to split a bunch of the food so we could try as much as possible. We ate many things including takoyaki (octopus dumpling), okonomiyaki (a sort of pancake with cabbage and meat), yakitori (chicken), kakigouri (shaved ice), some sort of meat on a stick...oh and we had beer because Japan doesn’t have open container laws so you can just walk around drinking! We also watched taiko drumming and shishimai, the lion dance.

As delicious as everything was, the kakigouri was the most appreciated in the heat. Mine was melon flavored.

The taiko was cool but the lion dance was amazing because I had never seen anything like it before. I’m going to attempt to include a video at the very end. From what I understand the lion represents disease so by fighting the lion (I’m not sure if they killed it or just tamed it) they are trying to ward off disease and illness for the town. One of the best parts was that one of the older gentlemen helping with the festival saw a large group of gaijin (John and his parents and the CIR who will soon be leaving had all joined us at this point) and had us go sit in the very front since we had come from so far away. Sometime standing out in the crowd has its upsides! We had an up close and unobscured view of a very cool traditional performance.

The children taiko group.

The adult taiko group.

Here is part if the shishimai. You can see that they've subdued the rest of the lion but the tail is still moving so they are going in for the kill.

Success, they've gotten the whole lion down!!

Sunday morning Alex, Cody, and I went to the beach! The water was really nice and because we are actually in Toyama Bay (though technically still part of the Sea of Japan) it was more like swimming in a salty lake than an ocean. After playing around in the water we went shopping. The highlight of this was going to a store that specialized in foreign food and beverages. Really though it was just a big liquor store that happened to have some pasta sauce and coke. Naturally, I got some wine and cheese for myself :3

That evening we went back to the festival for the fireworks. One of the Japanese girls that works with us came over to my apartment and helped me put on my yukata. She wore hers too and Cody also had one. You can believe we drew some stares but that’s pretty much expected at this point. The fireworks themselves were amazing!! They were shooting them off of a boat out in the bay and the display went on for an hour. We had found a nice waterfront spot where we could sit and watch. We were so close that the bang from the bigger fireworks actually shook us. Also, never before had I seen shaped fireworks (there was a heart and some cute characters) and the finale was just so huge!

Cody, Machiko, and myself all in our yukata ready to watch the fireworks display.

I also videoed some of the fireworks but they didn't come out that well.

After all the excitement from the weekend you wouldn’t think I’d have anything cool to share about work but actually Monday was special because Alex and I were taken to a driving school for an hour long driving lesson. The lesson entailed driving around Himi and then this little obstacle course at the very end. I was pretty nervous because in Japan they drive on the left side of the road and many of the roads are very narrow and it’s often hard to see people coming. However, as long as you pay attention you get used to it pretty quickly. I’ll just have to be extra careful when turning and make sure I go into the correct lane. Actually, probably the hardest thing to adjust to is that the turn signal is on the right side of the wheel. Both Alex and I kept turning on the windshield wipers the first few times we went to signal a turn.

Well that’s all for now! Here are the videos to go with my stories and pictures.

This is a small bit of the adult taiko performance.

Unfortunatley the shishimai didn't film as well as I was hoping. We were actually too close to get good shots (not that I'm complaining about the priority seating). For most of this you can see the tail end of the lion. Here he is being cornered with fire and eventually he sort of entangles himself. The film doesn't do this awesome performance justice at all.