chiba sand art

At my workplace, there are always posters up everywhere advertising all sorts of things: tax payments, business support, but also for events, and last month on of them happened to catch my eye - Chiba Sand Art 2014. It was taking place in Inage Seaside Park, which is a huge park not far from my house that I'd actually never properly visited, and looked pretty cool, so I made it a block event and went with some other Chiba City folks!

Our first stop in the park was a quick visit to the Inage Civil Aviation Memorial Museum, which I've translated stuff about for work but never actually visited. Inage is actually 'the birthplace of civil aviation in Japan', because the country's first civil aviation practice field in Japan was established here back in the day. The museum has some replicas of early biplanes and some exhibits, and they have regular events where kids can make different types of paper planes.

Next we headed off to see the sand art! The first thing we saw was tons of little sculptures all over the plaza, which were made by families. Some of them were really cute, and I bet they were fun to make. And then we saw the main sand sculptures, which were pretty impressive! I think the artist(s?) spent about a week making them, if that's any indication of the scale. The theme was the sea, and I liked how the smaller sculptures involved different animals that blended pretty seamlessly all the way around.

After looking at all the sculptures, we set off to explore more of the park, and we watched some groups performing eisa, a type of dance with drums from Okinawa, before making a quick stop by Inage Beach. Chiba City has the longest artificial seashore in Japan, which includes Inage Beach. I keep telling myself I need to go to a Chiba City beach (after translating things about them over and over again), so it was glad to have finally done so, even if only for a few minutes.

Our next stop (after indulging in some Dippin' Dots outside) was at the Sanyo Media Flower Museum (formerly known as the Chiba City Floral Museum), which is yet another thing I've written about for work and never gone to. It looks pretty small from the outside, but actually it's quite large - with several floors and different areas/galleries. I particularly liked the vegetable garden on the roof, and the giant hollow (fake) strawberry that we had to keep waiting for little kids to leave it alone so we could go in it, haha. For 300 yen admission, it was quite a good deal and well worth it.

Sanyo Media Flower Museum
Admission: 300 yen for adults
Address: 7-2-4 Takahama, Mihama-ku, Chiba City
Hours: 9:30 - 17:00 (closed Mondays and year-end/New Year)
Website: http://cga.or.jp/flower/index.html (Japanese only) 

Finally, we had lunch at Mother Moon Cafe, a cafe that my senpai CIR took me to when I first got to Chiba. It's quite close to my apartment but pretty well-hidden amidst a lot of factory buildings, so I'm surprised people can find it, but when we went it was actually pretty crowded, despite being past 2PM. It's got a lovely atmosphere and delicious food, so it made a nice wrap-up to the afternoon.

Mother Moon Cafe
Address: 117 Shinminato, Mihama-ku, Chiba City 261-0002
Website: http://www.mothermoon.jp/

dokidoki domatsuri

At the end of last month, my yosakoi team went to Nagoya to participate in the Nippon Domannaka Matsuri (often shortened to just Domatsuri), a big yosakoi festival on the same scale as the Yosakoi Soran Matsuri in Hokkaido - over 200 teams from all over the country, over the course of three days.

I was excited to go back to Nagoya, almost exactly a year after my last trip there, and it was pretty cool going to places I knew from studying abroad with my yosakoi team - past meets the present kind of thing. My host mother came to see us, and even managed to find me right before one of our parade performances! I also told a friend from study abroad about it and apparently she came to see us too, though I didn't manage to meet up with her. And my friend Jon was there too, since he had a Japan Rail Pass, and followed us around the whole day taking pictures.

What made this festival so memorable (and worth its own post) though, is that - to everybody's surprise - on the second day we found out that not only had our team won a special judge's award, but but we had placed 1st in our block and were therefore going to the finals! Although all our team emails about the tournament had included provisions for if we made it to the finals, I don't think any of us were expecting to actually make it there, since there were other really good teams in our block with even more members. I was hoping that maaaybe we could make the semifinals, or 2nd place in the block, so hearing that it was the actual finals was a huge surprise. Some people started crying right then and there after hearing the news, and even I got a bit teary.

Going to the finals meant that we would perform our dance one more time on the main stage, in the evening with bright stage lights. Apparently it was also broadcast on local television (in the middle of the night), and we had a TV crew come up to our team before and after the performances, which was pretty cool.

The teams drew lots for the performance order, and we ended up performing 8th, which out of 11 teams was pretty ideal. While we waited for our turn, we sat with the other finalist teams in an area behind the main stage, with a big screen showing us a live stream of the performances. The feeling of nerves and anticipation from all the dancers as everybody waited for their turn, in the dark illuminated only by the screen, was something else. But nothing compared to the feeling of actually dancing on that stage, with the whole team dancing for all their worth. I hadn't been placed in the group solo part for our parade performances in Nagoya, but I was in it for stage performances, so I got to dance it in the finals, and the feeling of dancing without anybody directly in front or behind me, seeing the crowd and the bright lights, in the city where I first experienced life in Japan, is something I will not forget any time soon. Definitely one of the most memorable experiences I've had in Japan so far, and I've done some pretty cool stuff (if I say so myself).

The end of our dance is pretty intense and always leaves everybody out of breath, but this time I think I really danced with all that I had and after the performance I was pretty much exhausted and crying and generally overwhelmed, but it was great. We went back to the waiting area to watch the last performances and wait for the judging results. We didn't win or anything, but I don't think anybody had anything to complain about for the rest of the night, even though we had to go straight back onto the bus and drive back to Chiba, and didn't get back until past 3AM. I had work as usual (because I had assumed we wouldn't make the finals and would be back at a more reasonable time), but I managed to get a few hours of sleep, so it was all good.

And that was my experience at the Nagoya Domannaka Matsuri! :)

august adventures

So until just a few days ago, my friend Jon from Carleton came to Japan to visit! We hadn't seen each other since we graduated, so it's been a while - so long that I almost didn't recognize him at the airport, haha.

Here's a quick recap of our adventures:
 - Dinner with my friend Chris and lunch/karaoke with my friend Jane for her birthday (my first time in Saitama!)

 - The Chiba Three Generations Festival! This year was a little different for me from in the past, because instead of dancing in the bon-odori dance that takes place at the end of the festival, I danced in our yosakoi performance! I think I knew that there were yosakoi performances in the festival, but somehow never managed to see any of them...anyway, one thing that made this performance special to me was that I was picked to dance in a part where there is essentially a group solo, despite the fact that I'd only just learned and danced that part for the first time literally the week before. The first performance was a bit of a mess, but I was really happy to have been picked. I was also happy because not only did my friend Jon come to see me, but also my coworkers (including my boss) and my roommate from when I was a TOA, who came to Chiba the day before leaving Japan just to see my team dance. It was a little bittersweet to think that this might very well have been my last Three Generations Festival, but at least it was a good one!

- A Carleton get-together! I felt like it was such a coincidence to have a Carleton gathering in Japan while my friend from Carleton happened to be visiting, and since it wasn't one of the usual events but rather last-minute, it really was. An alum who just happened to be in Japan set it up, and so we had dinner with him and a couple of current students, which was much smaller (and younger) than our usual events, and pretty fun.

- Post-Chiba Orientation dinner! Like last year, I presented at orientation as a block coordinator, but this year, as the president of Chiba AJET,  I also organized the annual dinner afterwards. Despite some hiccups with some no-shows, I think it was a success (and I am definitely grateful to have had our new council people there to help collect money; would have been so much more stressful on my own).

- Climbing Mt. Fuji. Oh man. So AJET was organizing a group to go climb Mt. Fuji, and since my friend was here I figured it'd be the perfect opportunity. But I didn't want to buy hiking boots just to wear them once, so instead I found a pair of sturdy-looking boots at a recycle shop. Long story short, the key word was 'looking' and the shoes completely fell apart during the climb, first with the top of the soles coming off (temporarily saved by zip ties from a man in the office), to completely detaching during the descent. But aside from that (and completely overestimating how much water we'd need and having much too heavy packs and no walking sticks), the ascent wasn't so bad. It didn't get too cold until we neared the top, the nighttime scenery was pretty cool, and climbing up the rocky parts was actually pretty fun.

And then we got to the top (around 3:30AM) and after waiting in the windy cold in a little niche we found, we saw the sunrise! It was, needless to say, gorgeous, and also pretty much directly in front of where we were. Pretty cool. And then after a quick stop at the post office at the summit, we started our descent, which I will gloss over because it was easily the worst part of the trip- After our first night in Kyoto, which mostly involved dinner, buying new shoes, and passing out on our beds, the next day we went to the Kyoto Botanical Gardens, Nijo Castle, and the International Manga Museum. This was my fourth time in Kyoto and Jon said he didn't mind missing the big tourist spots if I had already been, so we went to new places (except for Nijo Castle, but that had been one of my favorite places when I went with my family) - and they were both great! And then we met up with some of my friends in the Kyoto area, and had dinner at a Showa era-themed izakaya, which I thought was pretty interesting. The next day, we visited Arashiyama, another super famous part of Kyoto I'd never been to. We visited a famous temple, Tenryuuji and then a bamboo forest, followed by a scenic train ride up the mountain. We wanted to take a boat down the river but apparently it was closed because of typhoons. :( Still, it was all very nature-y and pretty, so still worth it. We spent the evening wandering around Gion, and then the next morning we went up Kyoto Tower,  which was pretty similar to most scenic towers but still cool.

And that was the end of our trip! Jon and I split ways agreed that, with me going back to Chiba and him continuing on to other parts of Japan. But we would soon meet again in Nagoya, which I'll talk about in my next post!
(mostly gravel, heavy packs, shoes that were essentially just thick socks at that point, etc. etc.), after which we boarded a bus (the first one I've ever been in that asked passengers to sit on the floor when seats ran out) and headed to Kyoto!

- After our first night in Kyoto, which mostly involved dinner, buying new shoes, and passing out on our beds, the next day we went to the Kyoto Botanical Gardens, Nijo Castle, and the International Manga Museum. This was my fourth time in Kyoto and Jon said he didn't mind missing the big tourist spots if I had already been, so we went to new places (except for Nijo Castle, but that had been one of my favorite places when I went with my family) - and they were both great! And then we met up with some of my friends in the Kyoto area, and had dinner at a Showa era-themed izakaya, which I thought was pretty interesting. The next day, we visited Arashiyama, another super famous part of Kyoto I'd never been to. We visited a famous temple, Tenryuuji and then a bamboo forest, followed by a scenic train ride up the mountain. We wanted to take a boat down the river but apparently it was closed because of typhoons. :( Still, it was all very nature-y and pretty, so still worth it. We spent the evening wandering around Gion, and then the next morning we went up Kyoto Tower,  which was pretty similar to most scenic towers but still cool.

And that was the end of our trip! Jon and I split ways agreed that, with me going back to Chiba and him continuing on to other parts of Japan. But we would soon meet again in Nagoya, which I'll talk about in my next post!