Life in Kanazawa: Musings from the Far East: July 2007

Lunch!

Today we went for a goodbye lunch with Zach's supervisor, her husband and her son. First we went to a gallery to see an exhibiion of her husband's, and then to a very traditional Japanese restaurant. It was so beautiful, because we had a private room to ourselves which opened up to a garden on both sides! Plus, the food was really, really delicious! Zach's supervisor has been so wonderful to us, and so helpful, so it was a really special lunch for us! And, her son is so ridiculously cute!!

Abare- From Above!

One of the teachers at Zach's school is from Ushitsu, the town where the festival was held. She very nicely invited us to join her family at her family home to celebrate- which of course meant great sushi! But, in addition, her family lives right on the corner where all the action happens, so we had a great view from above! It felt very voyeuristic though, as we could watch our friends below us the whole time!

"Bathing" the mikoshi!

Watching the action...

On its way to the shrine and the bonfire!

Watching the hooligans!

Zach and his teacher

Alexis and I!

Abare- Fire & Violence Festival

This past weekend Zach and I headed up north with some friends to the tiny town of Ushitsu for a fire and violence festival. The festival is about 330 years old, and occurs to thank the gods for removing a plague from the town. 40 different floats, or kirikos, are carried throughout the town from one shrine to another. These things are huge! There are also two mikoshi, or smaller floats, which are carried through town, bathed in the river, beaten, and then burned in a huge bonfire before being given as an offering at the shrine. Hence, the violence. We had long heard that it was one of the best festivals in Japan, so we were very excited!! We certainly had a lot of fun!!

Perhaps the greatest taxi driver ever! Not only did he originally agree to take seven of us in the taxi (before the policeman's wife who was manning the police station on her own agreed to drive the others on her birthday the half hour to the festival- love small towns!), but when he was stopped by the police for driving on streets that were closed off, he explained to the police officer he had to get the foreigners to the festival! And the police officer waved him through!!! Almost as funny as in the taxi on the way home when the police officer told our driver we couldn't go through when a very drunk old man walked up to the police officer and told him to let us through, and the police officer said okay! Gotta get the foreigners out!

The BEST meat-on-a-stick of my life!

The mikoshi gets ready to burn!

The kiriko lined up ready for parading! They were so big and heavy! Zach carried one for half an hour, and his shoulder is all scratched up and bruised!

The crowd watching the bonfire.

Sayonara!!!

This weekend was the farewell party for all of the JETs. We started out the night at an izakaya (pub), before heading out for karaoke, and then onto a final bar! It was perhaps the last time we will ever do karaoke, so we had to make sure to make the most of it! We had a lot of fun, although it doesn't really feel like we are leaving in three weeks!