Tenjin matsuri & Tsuruoka

Tenjin matsuri.

It's another great festival with lots of food and games and it ends with like the most spectacular display of fireworks!!!!

yeah well that's basically it in a nutshell. There's supposed to be a whole bunch of stuff that happens on the river. Groups of ppl in little boats with lanterns and stuff... but even though we got there early (it was in Osaka) it was friggin CRAMMED!!!! I thought Gion Matsuri had a lot of ppl... well I think it's prolly cuz this was in a smaller area (the area in Kyoto where Gion Matsuri was held has a huge -well huge for japan- 4 lane main street). I swear.. it was like this huge long line to get out of the train station and onto the street. The train station didn't have enough ticket machines to take up everyones tickets so you basically showed it to the attendants and went through.. it was seriously like going last minute to an A&M game (when we were good) or something..


The fun stuff is i got to eat this tamasenbei.. or something like that .. "tama" comes from tamago (egg) and senbei is the word for rice cracker. So it's this long thin cracker and they put some sort of miso paste on the bottom, add some puffed rice, slap on a fried egg and stripe out some mayo on it (japanese love mayo!) - it was great!!!

this was also the first time I'd worn my own yukata and my new obi... can you believe i bought a PINK obi?? yeah i can't believe it either.. but it goes well w/ the dark blue yukata.. and supposedly it 'reflects my bright friendly character' ..... yeah..

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tsuruoka

it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay up up at the top of japan and is like fertile texas plains surrounded by mountains and right next to the sea. It's gorgeous. You've got your fishing, your fresh veggies, fresh fruits, and great view. I think I finally understood what's the draw to go to small towns when you retire and stuff. On a nice day you can see that the mountain range goes for miles all around and there are HUUUGE mountains right next to the town. On two of the more famous ones you can still see snow!!! (and it was as hot as late spring in college station)

The crappy part about this experience was that it was a last minute deal on how to get there. The rains had caused a landslide that blocked the main railroad that usu takes ppl to that area, so suddenly all flights were crammed!! Even though I had planned to leave on Sat early morning.. I ended up going there on Thursday afternoon at totally last minute. Not only that, but I had to stay in Tokyo (unfortunately didn't leave early enough to do some last minute tokyo touring) overnight and get up at 5am the next day for the flight to tsuruoka. bah!!! it sucked!!

so when i got there i was tired as all hell!!!!! (and this place is still old school enough that they allow smoking indoors - so guess what my room smelled like?!) But i couldn't check in till 3pm.. and it was like 9am...

I would've been ok just dozing off in the lobby, but Kenji Nakahigashi (assistant researcher at KEIO university in Tsuruoka) he took me on a tour of the labs. It's kinda impressive really.. they had like over 30 mass specs in one building!!! and the other building for KEIO has like waaaay too many computers to count (ie. one is a wet lab and one is a dry lab- comp stuff)

I fortunately had a few hours nap before I went to this farewell party they were having for this Hungarian guy Gabor and another Kenji (japanese). There were like 25 ppl and i think like 1/3 of the world's countries were represented there!!! I met lots of really cool ppl.. and some kinda hot ones too hehehe Of course we pigged out and drank our guts full.. then we went to Harmony, the local club in the middle of nowhere

this was the first time for me to go to a club in Japan... but supposedly this one is like really small/local type deal... and it was reaaaally small.. it's about as big as ula and jazzi and my living room at university oaks (plus 'dining room' area)

but the music!!! it was GREAT!! it was jazzy, salsa-y, 60's and 70's-y .. the DJ was the shit basically.. but i could never quite understand when they would tell me his name (he is part of the lab.. that's why we went)... although i have to say.. dancing is not exactly an inextricable part of japanese culture like it is in Latin America... so it was kind of intersting.. but not bad.. you know I can dance to anything so twas fun. Then it was also the manager's bday and there was cake and wonderful champagne and yeah.. fun

and theeeeen. we went to Karaoke bar!!! b/c Gabor loves karaoke.. so he had to do it before he left. I was really kinda eeeeeeeh on it.. but several of the guys and girls there were really good and it was really fun... b/c Gabor can't sing to save his life.. so there wasn't too far down to go.. lol... Martin (canadian guy that's been in japan for like 10 yrs) was also really good and funny. Oh but this guy.. i have nooo clue what his name is... was just spectacular... he would sing and.. gods.. he sang this eric clapton song.. and i think he might've sounded better than the real thing. Interestingly enough his spoken english still has an accent, but when he sings.. it's like he was born in the US.. crazy

got home like at 4am... and got up at 8:30 for the Oyster Matsuri!!!!! yes, i ate much oyster and random sea things I could not identify.. but it was all cooked! hehe

then we went to this cute little bakery with a view of the sea and then we went to an Onsen (sauna)... where.. well you kinda wash before you get in.. and you go in naked... it was actually really beautiful.. so any uncomfortable feelings just kinda stayed back with my clothes.

then we went to this adorable restaurant that had a marvelous view of the mountains and rice fields (it was old school with sliding doors and old furniture and clocks and stuff).

then we went to a Noh play... it's hard to describe.. but it's incredibly traditional, and i was lucky to get a ticket after it sold out.. the music is odd.. but after listening for a while you just kind of get into this trance.. and they have SQUARE PANTS!!!!!! I'm gonna try to load a video of it so you can see. It lasted 4 hrs and there were 3 plays the first was about a dragon lady (ctrls the water) who dried up the river so that the king would find her a husband, when he did she gave him this drum that would alert him if there ever was trouble. And of course the neighboring country invaded and the drum sounded and he was almost defeated until the dragon king (her husband) came to the rescue and the drum split open and this mini-dragon guy fought off the invaders.... The king even got into it and defeated the main evil guy.
The second one was a comedy (not traditional noh) where this lord wanted to hold a contest for treasure so he sent his slave into town to find one. But this swindler guy noticed the slave was an idiot and sold him a drum stick as treasure, saying that whenever he pounded it to the ground a new treasure would appear (he fooled him by slipping a beautiful katana underneath the stick). When he returned and tried to show his master what he had bought (it was expensive and he thought he'd gotten a good deal) - well of course, nothing came out of the stick.. so the master was furious.. hardy harr harr hehe
the last one had to do with this guy that had a dream that he would get rich if he sold sake. He did, and at one of his taverns this sake spirit had a drinking contest with everyone there and never once got wasted... what really happened was a lot of talking and this long spriti-guy -dance.

last but not least I hiked through Mt. Haguro to its awesome shrines at the top (the whole mountain is chock-full of old treees planted ;by priests that were making their way to the top) It also had this marvelous 5-storied pagoda and super ancient tree (see pictures soon)

errr.. oh yeah and i almost forgot.. on the last day i visited the town's park and museum - which i thought would be really dinky.. but actually had some really decent fossils and well preserved stuff from this fisherman town (Shonai clan).

so i got back monday night.. and yesterday things were crazy b.c dr. mori came back too and left today for brasil. so they had lots of last minute meetings etc.. Plans are: this saturday i will go to Universal Studios in Osaka and end the day with fireworks. Next monday I will go to Obon Matsuri and next next Wednesday i will go to Daimonji Matsuri.....

i don't want to leave japan... i really like it here... :( only 22 days left to go..