Saturday, April 16 – Tuesday, April 20, 2010-

Sorry I appear to have been beamed to a different planet lately. I can’t say that I’m on Jupiter, just Japan. But compared to my experiences throughout the fall and winter, I could nearly say that I’m in a different Japan. I’ve had several very busy days lately getting to know my new host family and exploring my new surroundings. And what with an unexpected snowfall in mid-April, a hot sunny day at the Otawara Yatai festival, more day trips, more pottery, and more fun, I feel as if this Spring is turning out just like I hoped it would (well, maybe minus the snow). What I mean is that lately I’ve had an exhilarating sense of something new and exciting every day.

It is amazing to think that eight months ago today I was boarding a plane in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, beginning what has turned out to be one of the most rewarding, enlightening, and challenging years of my young life (which somehow doesn’t feel so young anymore!). Counting back, that is a grand total of 250 days…wooooah! Strange to think I’ve got another two and a half months to go, I’m sure they will be the fastest of them all.

I hope you will be satisfied with another slew of photographs and short explanations beneath each. The Yatai festival that I attended with Grace Lee and several other ALT English teachers was an exciting day of food, music, and tradition. The Yatai is a big, decorated festival float that is basically just a big wooden music box on wheels! With drums, bells, flutes, and voices exploding out of each cart, it is an exciting and inspiring spectacle to see one or two, let alone nine or ten like I did last Sunday. Add fantastic weather, enough food stands to feed a small army, a happy-go-lucky crowd and it culminated in an unforgettable day. Plus, I even got to meet new British, Australian, Japanese and American friends along the way. Now that’s just a great day for everyone! =)

The Otawara Yatai Matsuri Festival

Everyone's in a good mood when they get to ride on a float this spectacular, especially if you're on the roof!

Grace Lee, the ALT English teacher at my school. She's from America and recently graduated from UNC, coming to Japan in order to teach English for a couple years.

Sorry Grace, she's even cuter!

Grace and I got invited to climb inside one yatai. Ah, the perks of being a tall, blonde foreigner in a crowd of Japanese!

*Attention Paris: lime green is in this year*

The costumes are just as colorful and intricate as the floats

Hard at work

Every float is unique and each group is extremely proud of their yatai

I later saw this man being attacked by a group of 8-year-old boys...

These carts must literally weigh a ton. They're solid wood and then add a handful of musicians on the inside and a pair on the roof and it makes for a heavy load

I'm probably breaking some social boundary by taking this picture

But hey, that's just good photojournalism, right?!

Haha, at least that's what I'll tell myself

We called this one "Child Labour"

(I had to include the -u in the name because Matt and Malcolm came up with the name and they're British)

A quiet temple made for a strange escape from the festival

A picture of the crowd seen in the short video above

One of the first drum competitions. The crowd swarms in and each stall plays and plays and plays until finally a judge declares one the winner. Don't ask me how they decide, each group sounded better than the last!

"The Boss" as we termed her. This woman looks fierce enough to command the whole parade, doesn't she?

Last Saturday Miki and I went down to Mashiko, a famous town to the south of Nakagawa that is extremely famous for beautiful pottery.

Interesting fact: I was originally scheduled to live in Mashiko as the Mashiko Rotary Club exchange student. It makes me wonder what my life would have been like if I'd ended up there

Miki and I enjoyed a coffee and fried cheese cake on the way home

My host brother Yasunori and his wife Rumi when we went out to Ramen noodles yesterday. They're both the best! Super understanding, inclusive, patient, and funny. I'm lucky to have them as host siblings

Grandpa's bonsai trees get hit with a sudden mid-April snow storm. That's a shinto Torii gate in the background. It's basically where my host family goes with their prayers and wishes

The Shiozawa's soba restaurant with the cherry blossoms in bloom behind

I even got to go out to a sushi dinner with my host parents Sunday night

Tell me your mouth isn't watering at this one. Fresh Sashimi!

Turban Shell Kai

It's a big beast of a conch shell! Meaty and white on the inside, it coils round and round to the very top.

And a beautiful platter of nigiri rice ball