I Made it to the Ocean!

After months stuck inland in Morioka, I finally fulfilled one of my Japan bucket list items... I made it to the ocean!

While Dan was visiting we took the train to the town of Miyako, which was about a two hour ride. Miyako was hit by the big tsunami four years ago, so it was very interesting when we drove through the town to see how the rebuilding was coming along. There was still a lot of construction happening, even this long after the event.

We took a bus to Jodogahama Beach, which was awesome. It's known for its blue water and its big rock peaks. And you can go swimming! The beach is still a big draw for lots of tourists, which is great to help Miyako's economy as it continues to rebuild.

We went swimming there, and then had some lunch at the little cafeteria area next to the beach. Tyler got curry rice, and the rice was made to look like the rock peaks at the beach. Pretty adorable, and delicious!

As the day ended, we took a quick jaunt to the top of one of the bluffs near the beach, for this lovely view of the water. 

All in all, a great day! One of my favorite trips from Dan's visit. Look at these happy campers soaking up some sun!

Morioka Sansa

The first four days of August were a big deal in Morioka - it was Sansa! Sansa consists of four nights of parading, including a traditional dance, drumming, and flute playing. Morioka's Sansa festival is the biggest drum parade of its kind in the world (called Taiko drums), and was even awarded a Guiness World Record in 2007!

The reason behind Sansa is thus:
Morioka lies in Iwate prefecture. "Iwate" means "rock hand." It is named because of a legend that says (to roughly paraphrase due to my limited understanding of the story): There was once a demon terrorizing the area that is now Iwate. To be specific, I think he was maybe eating a lot of people. A good spirit of some kind bound the demon to these three big rocks, and scolded him for being so rude and eating people. Eventually, the demon came to see the error of his ways and pressed his hand print in to the rock as a promise that he wouldn't do evil and terrorize the good folks of Iwate anymore. And on the day that the demon denounced evil and left the area, the people of Morioka celebrated (for four days I guess). That's Sansa, everybody! Roughly.

The parading was beautiful. I attended three of the four nights, and although I didn't stay for the full three hours of any of those nights, the atmosphere was awesome. There were soooo many people lining the streets, and food vendors, and beer, and people selling other cool stuff.  But mostly there were just tons of people, all having a good time! The first night Tyler and I went with my coworkers. The third night we went with our friend from college Dan who is visiting, and on the last night we went with Dan and our neighbors Claire and Jesse! A fabulous time was had by all, despite the oppressive heat (those poor dancers looked like they were melting).

The lovely lady in pink is one of five Miss Sansa winners. They were like local celebrities, and led the parade each night. They had an all-female entourage of drummers, singers, dancers, and floutists who were all very talented and graceful.

Besides beautiful dancers, singers, drummers, and foutists (of all genders, in the dance groups that followed), there were also mascots in the parade! (And a few floats, not pictured). The Wanko Brothers (these bowl headed dudes) are the mascots of the Iwate prefecture. Each major city  has its own contents in the bowl. Morioka's is soba noodles. There is also a tofu brother, an uni (sea urchin) brother, a Japanese grain brother, and a bean one of some kind. They're on everything from buses to signs to store fronts, and I love them!

This teapot-head guy was a little scary. He had a mesh see-through gold spandex suit, with a small black speedo underneath. And, of course, that big-eyed teapot head.

Also, as there should be at any good festival, there was great fair food. I've been seeing people walking around with these beautiful potato spirals on a stick forEVER, and finally I got one of my very own! It lived up to all of my expectations. Plus it was fun to eat and pretty!

Lastly, here's a video compilation of some of my favorite moments of the three nights of Sansa I attended, so that you can get a real feel for the music, dancing, and the power of the drums! Happy Sansa!

The OASIS Team

Next week, we will have a new teacher starting at OASIS. But for most of July, it was only one other teacher (Michi) and I at the school, along with our very sweet boss Ryoko-san. One day last week I walked into the office to find these three hard-boiled egg representations of the three of us, done by Ryoko-san. She's in the middle, Michi is on the left and I'm on the right! It was super cute.

Also, I learned that in Japanese culture telling someone that they look like an egg is a good thing. One of the students told Michi that she had an egg head and Michi and I cracked up (no egg pun intended). While "egg-head" in rather insulting in our cultures, I learned that in Japanese comparing someone to an egg means that they have a nicely shaped head and beautiful smooth skin. What a fun fact!


Also, I'm very much enjoying a week-long vacation right now!

Tokyo

Oh yeah, Tyler and I spent a day in Tokyo right before I flew back to Alaska. Here are some of the highlights: 

We stayed next to Ueno Park, home to Ueno Zoo, which was awesome. Here's me with this adorable little plant-panda.

We visited Sensoji temple. It was great, because we got there pretty early in the morning before there were so many people around. The old style Japanese temple buildings were gorgeous, and the whole area was beautiful with little bridges, creeks, and ponds full of colorful fish.

Then for our more modern architecture, we visited the Tokyo Skytree. We didn't end up going up in the Skytree, because it was kind of expensive and the line was really long. But I'm sure there's a great view of Tokyo from up there!

At the Skytree there was a very cool aquarium that is featured in my Animals of Japan post video. Here's Tyler pretending to be a garden eel.

And that's Tokyo, folks!

Matsuzono Festival

My apartment is located a little ways outside of downtown Morioka, in a region called Matsuzono. I especially like this name because it makes me think of the Mat-Su Valley in Alaska, so it's the perfect place for me to call home here!

A couple of my students at OASIS also live in Matsuzono. A week or two ago they informed me that there was going to be a tiny festival in Matsuzono. They translated the schedule of events for me and everything, which was really sweet. So last Sunday, that's where I spent my day! During the day it was ungodly hot, so I took a quick look around then retreated to my apartment until evening hit and it cooled off a little. There was great fair food, and I got to see a performance of the traditional Japanese instrument the shamisen! There were tons of adorable little Japanese children running around in yougata, the summer kimonos. Tyler and I hung out drinking beer on the lawn. Then, at the end of the evening, there was a great fireworks show! Tyler pointed out that the whole thing felt like a Fourth of July celebration, which we never really got to have. It was a nice day in our neighborhood, although I didn't end up seeing any of my students there, which was too bad.

A parade of children from the local schools.

 Street of food vendors. YUM.

In the evening when we returned, lots of delightful lanterns lighted the way!

Excitedly watching fireworks!

Incidentally, here's how I celebrated the actual Fourth of July:

Life and Death

"I had an axolotl named Rosie. She died! She died!" - Lisa Simpson's poetry, adapted for my own personal use by Ithaca Sorensen

Unfortunately, young Rosie has passed. As temperatures climbed into the 30s (or 90s for you Fahrenheit users out there), the heat became too much for her little body to bear. We tried everything to cool her water, from shade and fans to ice bottles in the tank, but to no avail. She wouldn't eat and she got paler and paler. Finally, as a last resort I tried putting her in the fridge (a technique for cooling axolotls that has actually proven quite successful in many cases, despite how scary it sounds). But by that time I fear it was too late, and in the morning when I opened the refrigerator she was gone.

Tyler was away that weekend, so my neighbor Jesse was the only witness to the funeral service held in Rosie's honor. With a spoon, I dug a small hole in the yard by our apartment, under a nice little bush. I built a mound of small rocks atop her grave, and placed a nice blue flower on top. I cracked open a cold beer, and poured the first drink out for her.

RIP Rosie.

But, as always, life goes on. After Rosie's death I was consoled by health of my small garden on my porch! This morning I harvested my first (and so far only) cucumber. But look how big it is! Yum! Also, I have been munching on the many cherry tomatoes as they become ripe for the picking. My first blueberry turned blue. Only my broccoli plant remains fruitless. Oh well.

As we mourn the death of Rosie, who always had a smile on her little axolotl face and a spring in her floating step, we must remember that life goes on in many other ways. I write this post while sitting in the kitchen, watching out the window as butterflies flit cheerfully around Rosie's grave, enjoying their beautifully short lives. 

My Job Rules (because there are no rules)

Last week I officially started my job at OASIS English Private Conversation School. When I was here in May, I went to visit Tyler at his work at a public high school here in Morioka. He wears a suit to work every day and the students wear uniforms. Everyone is super polite and the students I talked to seemed kind of shy about speaking English in classes. Overall it was a very reserved environment. So that's what I was prepared for the Japanese school/workplace to be like. OASIS was a pleasant surprise.

Basically, my job is to chat with nice old ladies who are very excited to tell me all about their weekend trips to visit their grandchildren or go to nearby onsen (Japanese hot springs). I chat with people who are getting ready to go on a trip abroad, or have just come back. I hear about people's dance classes or piano lessons or their sick cats. With our younger students, I play a lot of games. Even with the adult students I sometimes play games! In one of the most advanced classes last week we played Cards Against Humanity. My job rules.

My coworkers at OASIS are awesome and friendly (although two of them are leaving to go home to the US and Croatia, hence me being hired). Instead of a school, it kind of feels like a big living room where friends drop by to hang out. And as if it wasn't great enough already, there seems to be an endless supply of candy and cookies and cakes that students bring as they return from their awesome trips. Bringing back small gifts of food for your friends when you take a trip is a big-time custom in Japan. And it's big-time delicious.

In case it's not obvious at this point, I love it there. Which is super cool considering that I got this job through Facebook and blindly agreed to it. Lucky me!