three-day weekend!

Alas, it is now almost the end of my first three-day weekend, aka my first day off since coming to Japan! Today was 敬老の日, or Respect for the Aged Day, and there's actually another national holiday (the spring equinox) at the end of the week, but because it's on Saturday we don't actually get a day off (apparently we only get a replacement day off if the holiday is on Sunday, according to Wikipedia).

Anyway, on Friday I went to my first Japanese baseball game! I'm not a baseball fan, by any means, but I was told that Japanese baseball games are better and so I should definitely go to one. Well, to be honest this game was pretty similar to the ones I saw in America (except for cool things like fireworks, driving the player out in a convertible every time they switched pitchers, and setting free tons of balloons at the 7th inning), but I think that's because we weren't sitting in the cheering section, which seemed much more lively. But Cory (who let me use one the free tickets he got as a fan club member!) knew most of the cheers and songs and participated too, so it was probably pretty close. And next week we're actually going again, with a few more people, this time to actually cheer in the cheering section, which should be exciting!

On Saturday I went to the 21st Tokyo International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival! I'd heard about it from another JET who was planning to go, and since Tokyo is so close I figured it was worth it to go even for just one day. The festival didn't seem very big to me (they only showed one movie at a time, in one room for 350 people), but it's also run entirely by volunteers, which I thought was impressive. I was worried the tickets would sell out before I got there, but the other JET I went with had accidentally ended up in Tokyo an hour earlier than he meant to and managed to be almost at the front of the ticket line, so we were able to get our tickets without any problems. The first movie we watched was called Weekend, which some of my Carleton friends kept telling me was really good (and it was)!

 After the movie we went to Yoyogi Park to meet with the Stonewall AJET group and have some pizza and hang out until the next movie. It was my first time in Yoyogi Park, and I think it's pretty amazing that there's such a big park in the middle of Tokyo - when you're inside it definitely doesn't feel like it at all! It was nice to relax in the park and meet some new people before heading off to my next movie, though I went to this one alone because I was more interested in it than the documentary everybody else was planning to see. It was a Canadian film called Cloudburst, and I really liked it. I would definitely recommend both movies - they were very different from each other, but very good! After the movie I took a look around the little gallery that was set up in conjunction the festival and then got ready to head back to Chiba. On the way back I went to LaLaport again (yeah, I know), to finally buy a real bento box and some other kitchen stuff (I'm a sucker for kitchen stuff, as it happens). The bento box is pink, which is not my favorite color, but I really like the size and shape of it so I'm excited to use it!

I had originally intended for Sunday to be my lazy day at home doing boring things like cleaning, but Gina invited me to go for a drive around Chiba (Prefecture!) with her and two of her French friends who were visiting Japan, so I did that instead! I met up with Gina at 10 and because her friends were running pretty late, we went shopping for a little bit before meeting up with them and heading off to our destination, Nokogiri-yama down near the coast (though I guess Chiba is a peninsula so almost everywhere is the coast, haha). In the interest of saving some space here, I'm going to save describing the day for my new travel blog, which has now been made and is here: http://rochelle-ryokou.blogspot.jp/ (Can you tell I like alliteration?) I realize it's probably a pain for people to read both, but it'll keep my posts from getting as horrendously long as they probably would and will also hopefully help my chances in being a Chiba-kun Ambassador next year, so check it out if you're interested! :)

Then today I went to Eco Messe 2012! It's an annual event that is all about being green/environmentally-friendly, with booths, demonstrations, and even seminars and workshops. I met up with Cory there, with plans to meet another JET a little bit later, and we wandered around looking at all the booths, which had stuff from vegetables to stuff made using old kimonos (I bought a cat-shaped coaster!) to chopstick-making demonstrations (which was unfortunately over by the time I decided I wanted to make my own chopsticks). There was also a can-crushing competition, which Cory seemed to really enjoy participating in, haha.

After looking around for a bit we got lunch and then managed to find out JET friend Mike before checking out the solar cooking demonstration, which I though was pretty cool. After that we went back inside and ended up participating in energy-saving bingo, which I'm pretty sure was meant for kids but ended up being one of the most fun parts of the day. There was a mascot from the gas company who has hosting it, and the emcee was a very lively lady who saw the two I was with and tried to include English in her performance, with some pretty adorable results. Then we got Mike to try the can-crushing competition, which he was actually quite successful at. Afterward we headed back outside to make mini pizzas with a grill, where we found our bingo emcee again! She was pretty happy to see us again and chatted with us, while encouraging us to participate in the ring toss (I won an eraser) and the mini pizza-making (at some point we also tasted some solar-cooked curry, which apparently took a few hours to make). We found out that she was actually a former talent, who had apparently been popular about 7 years ago. When she told us about her blog, Mike asked whether if he took a picture with her, she'd put it on her blog, which she agreed to. Somehow Cory and I got roped into it as well, so I guess later I might be on a former talent's blog. Cool.

So that was my long weekend, and tomorrow is back to work as usual. Ho hum. :)