Nebuta, Part 1

Before we get into the thick of things here, I just wanted to let you all know that I've gone back and added photos to some of my old posts (this is actually going to be an ongoing process). The only thing is that I've noticed that the "archive" buttons on the side don't work. While I'm trying to figure what's going on there, just use this link to access the July archives. Cool?

Also, more people need to post comments, so that I can feel popular.

Anyway, yesterday I went up to see the Nebuta festival in Aomori city. I'm actually going back tomorrow, to participate in the parade (as all Aomori JETs are invited to do) but I was invited to tag along with Charlie and the American home-stay group so I figured, why not? They may have actually thought that I would be able to help translate or something but Charlie's Japanese is pretty impeccable and he clearly didn't need any help. Well, we all took a bus up to Aomori City, which took about 2/2.5 hours or so. Our first destination was actually Sannai-Maruyama, once the site of a large village in the Jomon era where a number of important archeological discoveries were made. At first, you see all these old looking structures and you can't believe that they're actually 4,000-5,000 years old. And then you find out that they're not-they're actually recreations made based on findings in the area. Well, that really sucked a lot of the fun out of it, although they did have a number of really interesting artifacts and such that they've found over the years.

We then drove back into the city, where we prepared for the festival. The home-stay kids were all middle schoolers from a school in Kittery, Maine and were pretty clueless about Japanese culture, which made for some rather funny cultural misunderstandings. Our first destination was a dress shop, where all the kids got outfitted in the traditional Nebuta garb. We then went around the city in an effort to kill time until the start of the nightly parade. We first went to the area where the floats were being prepared, which was full of Japanese people who were literally tripping over themselves to gawk at and take photos of this large group of oddly-clad foreigners. The floats were amazing to behold, they were basically huge wood and wire-frame structures covered with paper and then exquisitely painted. Most of them illustrated some old folk tale or something so the majority of them had dudes killing dragons on them and other badass things like that.

We then went to this huge triangular building along the coast, which serves as the Aomori prefecture tourist center. Charlie and I had apple pies made from Aomori apples, they were okay.

The parade started at about 7:00 pm and went on until about 10 or 11. It was incredible. Basically, it takes over the whole city as it snakes through all the major streets. In addition to the floats (which were a sight in and of themselves), were giant structures holding huge taiko drums. There were a number of these things and you could hear the beat reverberating throughout the city. All over the parade, there were thousands of dancers (pretty much anyone who wants to be in the parade can put on a costume and dance) dancing behind the drummers and shouting the traditional chant of "Rasera!". The Nebuta dance isn't really much of a dance, it's really more of a semi-coordinated hop, so it's not too difficult to master. The costumes have bells on them that are designed to fall off and it's apparently considered good luck if you catch a bell. So every time a bell would fall off of someone's costume, someone would pick it up and throw it out into the screaming crowd (kind of like madri gras, I suppose, but sans flashing and that sort of thing). Basically everyone in the city comes out to watch the parade and has a good time, it's really cool. I can't wait to go back on Friday to participate. I'll probably post some pictures tomorrow, or whenever I have a chance.

Plus, today I came into work and my boss said "Since you got home so late last night, I've decided to let you have an extra day of leave, which you can take whenever you want". So I got to go to a festival while being paid and I got a day off. Swish!

The people in the office just tried to explain the extremely complicated garbage schedule to me which I wasn't understanding until Okubo-San produced a chart from inside her desk. They just kept saying something about "dust". Then they made fun of me for drinking Coca-Cola. Then they asked me what the best thing I knew how to cook was. When I said lasagna they all went "OH!" and their eyes lit up in excitement. I told them that I couldn't make it in Japan because they don't have many of the ingredients, plus Japanese houses don't have ovens. Then they started trying to think of someone they knew who had a "range oven" so that I could make them all lasagna. If you've ever had my spinach and Italian sausage lasagna, you would know that their enthusiasm is completely warranted.