Monday, October 27, 2014

a near-perfect day

A couple of weekends ago I had one of those days where pretty much everything went well and I just felt happy, so I thought I should write about it! Plus it involves a new place in Chiba City, all the more reason to write a blog post.

The day started out with a yosakoi performance for a 敬老会, or a gathering to celebrate those who have lived to over a certain age - I'm not sure what the exact age was. This performance was fun because it was on a big indoor stage, the likes of which I haven't performed on since I did Chinese dance in high school (very nostalgic), and also because the mayor was there! There have actually been a couple of times where I have the same schedule as the mayor on a weekend, through a combination of yosakoi and work, but until now he's never actually been around during our performance, even if he was at the same event. But this time I actually saw him in the front row, which was pretty cool. I doubt he noticed me (not sure if I'd want him to, really), but the manager of the Secretarial Division, who always accompanies the mayor on weekend work trips, knows I do yosakoi (because we ran into each other the last time the mayor and I had similar schedules) and even joked about it once, so maybe he saw me. I also finally got the chance to talk to someone on the team about getting all of us who are the same age together for dinner or something, which was exciting.

After the performance, which was in the art/culture hall of Aoba-no-Mori Park, I decided to wander around, because it was my first time there, despite having done translations about it at work. It's a really huge park (for a big city, Chiba has a lot of these), and it's the venue for athletic events like international cross-country races, which is pretty cool.

I was first intrigued by some signs pointing toward a 'sculpture plaza', so I went to investigate and discovered a big open area with various sculptures, trees, steps, and what looked like a Greek temple! There was a group of cosplayers taking photos in between the columns, if that gives a sense of how it looked.

After that I just wandered for a bit in the gorgeous cool autumn air, through a flower garden, by a lake, around an open field, and into a little orchard. I also saw several people feeding stay cats, which were everywhere, and even ran into a couple of kittens! I also passed by a Chiba-kun cafe, which was unfortunately closing but very intriguing.

I didn't want to wander too far or long for fear of getting lost if it got dark, but as I went back through the sculpture garden, I noticed how gorgeous the sky was - blue with lots of wispy clouds, and it was the widest view of the sky I've seen since coming to Chiba. This park is in the middle of the city, but when I looked up I couldn't see any buildings, just pure open sky.

I couldn't help but just stare up at it for a while, and then I heard the sounds of a guitar. A random singer-guitarist started performing nearby, so I lay down on a nearby bench and enjoyed the music while gazing at the sky. It was so peaceful and beautiful and basically just bliss.


I stayed until it got colder and darker and the guitarist wandered away, before slowly heading back to the station. I was in the middle of shopping for some necessities when I remembered that my favorite west coast swing event was that day, and I still had time to make it!

So I hopped on a train to Tokyo and went to west coast swing for a few hours. I hadn't been to this particular event in months, and west coast is my favorite, so I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

And then I had a good LINE conversation on the train ride home and made it back with 3% battery life on my phone - and that was the end of my almost-perfect day! Yosakoi, nature, kitties, swing dance, and good conversations - what more could I ask for? :)

Monday, October 13, 2014

second chiba-kun ambassador tour

Last month was this year's second Chiba-kun Ambassadors tour, and I didn't oversleep this time! ...-.-'

This tour included several places I've been to before, but luckily that didn't mean it was boring or anything. I was very excited for our first stop, pear-picking in Kamagaya!

I'd actually been to Kamagaya for the first time earlier that month (for a yosakoi festival) and tasted their nashi (Asian pears), so I knew what to look forward to. If you've never had nashi, you should fix that right away because they're delicious and far superior to normal (American) pears (in my of-course totally unbiased opinion, haha). Chiba is also famous for nashi (the hyper-popular unofficial mascot Funassyi - yes, that's how it's officially spelled - is from Funabashi, which is known for nashi, hence the name), and I think Kamagaya is one of the places better-known for it.

To be entirely honest I'm not exactly sure which pear-picking place we went to, but as it happens there are at least 9 gardens with pears and even more with things like grapes and peaches, so if you go to Kamagaya I'm sure you could find somewhere easily. The place we went to had trees with very low branches, which I think were grown that way to make it easier for people to pick. As a short person, I was very happy to be able to pick pears without needing a ladder of any sort, but I also couldn't help giggling at my very tall Ambassador friend Calvin, who was struggling to find a place to stand up. The pears were also all individually wrapped in little paper bags, which was apparently to protect the skin as that type of pear bruises easily. Which made it a little harder to decide which ones to pick, but I still managed to find two big pears to take home. And they had free samples for us to try that they kept replenishing as we devoured them. :D

Our next stop was Boso-no-Mura, which I've been to and written about before. I think it's a great tourist spot for those who want something very Japanese and I was happy to go there again. This time I spent most of the time we had making my very own pair of chopsticks! We were given a long and thin piece of wood whose ends we had to shave into chopstick shape, before sawing it in half, sanding them, and finishing them up with some nut oil. I haven't used them yet, but I was pretty happy to have made my own chopsticks (I think I just like making things). My favorite thing about Boso-no-Mura is how they offer so many activities you can try yourself - making things, tasting things, harvesting vegetables, etc.


Boso-no-Mura Experience Museum
Address: 1028 Ryukakuji, Sakae-machi, Imba-gun, Chiba Prefecture, 270-1506
Admission: 300 yen for adults, 150 yen for high school/college students
Hours: 9:00-16:30, closed Mondays
Access: 20 minutes by bus from JR Narita Station on the JR Narita Line (headed for "Ryukakuji-dai-shako", get off at "Ryukakuji-dai-2-chome", followed by an 8-minute walk)
Website: http://www.chiba-muse.or.jp/MURA/e/ 

And then it was finally time for lunch! We went to a restaurant called Kanetaya and had unagi-don, or eel over rice, which was delicious. Eel is a bit on the pricey side (especially now that the Japanese eel has been declared endangered...I did feel slightly guilty for eating it), so it's not something I eat often, but it was just as delicious as I remembered. For dessert, there was black bean castella, which I think won an award of some sort - it was also very tasty.

Kanetaya
Address: 3692 Ajiki, Sakae-cho, Inba-gun, Chiba
Access: 12-minute walk from JR Ajiki Station (they also have a free shuttle bus for groups of 10 or more)
Website (Japanese only): http://kanetaya.main.jp/

Finally, our last stop was Narita Airport. I have to admit I was a little skeptical when I first heard of the plan, since pretty much all of the Ambassadors are sure to have used Narita at least once, if not many times, but actually I saw some places I'd never seen and learned some new things about it, which was cool. The airport is putting a lot of effort into making it welcoming to non-Japanese speakers, with multilingual guides/tourist info, free wifi, a prayer room, and a brand-new capsule hotel. The day we went they were also having an event/fair in a plaza I didn't know existed, and it was very well-attended - I bet there were just as many locals as airport guests, which I thought was pretty cool. I also learned that there's a scale you can use to test your luggage before going to the counter (which in all my trips to Narita I've never noticed), and an outdoor deck where you can sit and watch planes take off. Very cool.

And that was our second tour! Like I said, not as many new places for me this time, but nonetheless fun and enjoyable. :D