tour number two, day two

(a continuation of this post!)

So the next we dragged ourselves out of bed bright and early to help haul in a fish net on the beach! Although it was like 8 in the morning, the sun was already out and blazing - but the beach did look gorgeous. We weren't the only ones there to try pulling in the net - it takes a lot of people, evidently - so there were lots of families and children running about. After a brief explanation, we started pulling! At first it was easy, but the closer the net got, the heavier the rope became. And then we got to see our catch - at first it didn't seem like much, but since it ended up being breakfast for all the people there, it was actually plenty. We listened to an explanation about what kind of fish we had brought in (which I promptly forgot) and then watched them prepare them right there into tempura and sashimi before digging in! I will say, sashimi from fish you caught literally less than an hour ago is pretty fabulous. :)

After packing up all our stuff, we were off to our next destination, the Biwa Club, a roadside station famous for loquats (props to you if you know what those are without looking them up) to try our hand at making traditional fans! Round fans, or uchiwa, are pretty common in Japan (a lot of companies give them out in the summer as advertisements), but apparently Chiba is one of the places that is famous for making these traditional ones. Our teachers were an elderly couple who had clearly done this many times, and who commented on how we were much more careful about it than the elementary schoolers they usually teach, haha. We made the fans using what I think was glue made from rice and designs that they let us pick (which was the hardest part), and I think they turned out well! After that we wandered around looking at loquat souvenirs and trying loquat ice cream (which was tasty), before heading to lunch.

Lunch was at a little restaurant called Hyakushou Yashiki Restaurant Jiroemu, which is also apparently entirely reservation-only. It was a very quaint farmhouse-like place, and I think all the food was made from local stuff (or possibly stuff grown there?) - and was delicious, naturally. It really had a cozy, old-fashioned atmosphere, including a set of really old Japanese encyclopedias! A cool experience.

After lunch we headed to our final destination for the tour, Nokogiri-yama! I've been there before so I probably won't go on about it too much here, but it was just as cool to ride the cablecar, see the Buddhist statues and giant Buddha, and go to 'Hell's overlook' again the second time! We also had another guide there to explain things to us, which was cool. It did rain while we were up there for a bit, but we managed to take shelter and climb back down the mountain without any problems.

And then it was just a four-hour trip back that was only supposed to have taken about two (due to lots of unexpected traffic on the Sunday of a three-day weekend), and that was the end of day two of tour two! Like I said, this was definitely the most fun trip we've had so far, and I'm also really glad to know of some more places down in southern Chiba that I can recommend to people. It's a little bit inconvenient to get down there without a car, but I'd say the beautiful views of the ocean are definitely worth it. :)

Also, if you want to get a better sense of what the tour was like, you can see the hard work of the local TV crew that followed us around all weekend here! It is all in Japanese, but if you look closely you can see me in the background quite a few times in the second clip. :)

- Biwa Club: (http://www.biwakurabu.jp/)
- Nokogiri-yama: (http://www.mt-nokogiri.co.jp/pc/p130000.php)

tour number two, day one

Last month was our second Chiba-kun Ambassador tour, which also happened to be the first one ever with an overnight stay! Spending the night made it seem much more like a trip and I felt like I got to know the other ambassadors much better, so this has definitely been the most fun thing we've done together so far. Plus we were lucky to have wonderful weather (almost) the whole time. The destination for this tour: Minamiboso and Tateyama in southern Chiba, aka the very tip of the peninsula!

Our first stop was Okinoshima, an uninhabited island in Tateyama. After a roughly two-hour bus ride, we stepped off onto sand and gorgeous blue skies! The island is uninhabited, but apparently a popular tourist destination for exploring and collecting shells. We were taken around the island by a pair of very knowledgeable guides, who told us all about the island and the creatures living on and around it. It was really fun to explore the island, which had lots of rocky areas to explore and even a little tunnel, not to mention breathtaking views almost everywhere. I collected lots of miniature shells and tried (unsuccessfully) to make a whistle out of leaves like our guide showed us.

Having wandered all around the island, our next destination was lunch at a local hotel! The restaurant was called Ikoi no Mura Tateyama and apparently they come up with new dishes made from local ingredients depending on the season, and the two choices that we had were relatively new. I picked the hasshoku donburi, or 8-color mini rice bowls, and I am definitely happy with that choice! As you can maybe tell from the name, it was made up of 8 little donburi (rice bowls with toppings), each with a different topping and also a different salt to sprinkle on it! There was an order to eat them in and everything, which was a little complicated but delicious. :)

Then we were off even further south to the Shirahama Marine Art Museum and the Nojimazaki Lighthouse, which are located at the southernmost tip of Chiba Prefecture! The Shirahama Marine Art Museum has displays of (you guessed it) marine art, mostly of some intricately designed traditional coats that were worn, but also some old fishing tools and sculptures. The top of the lighthouse offered a fantastic view of the ocean, and there was also a little museum at the bottom explaining its history. My favorite part though, was actually the seashore in the park area nearby! There they had a marker proclaiming it as the southernmost tip of the prefecture, as well as a bench way up on some rocks that was apparently the best place to watch the sunset. But what I liked was climbing around the rocks to get a little closer to the ocean! A few of us clambered down and out and it was super fun (and beautiful and windy). Apparently most of the ambassadors didn't even make it out to the park, which I think was a real shame. The next time somebody wants to see a beautiful place in Chiba, I would definitely take them there!

 

Though I could have spent a lot more time around the shore, after what felt like just a few minutes we were off again to our final destination for the day: our minshuku (kind of like a Japanese bed-and-breakfast), Omeidosou. But the activities didn't end there! After a brief break for us to settle in and rest a little, we gathered in a room to see a performance of (o)hayashi, or traditional festival music. This wasn't my first experience with the music, but it was the first time hearing it indoors and up close! One of the members was a little boy who must have been about six or seven, who was super adorable. After the performance, they let us come up and try the drums and flutes for ourselves! I could do the drums all right, but couldn't manage to make a proper sound out of the flute (I was so bad one of the performers laughed at me, even, haha).

And then it was time for dinner, which I'm pretty sure was prepared by the minshuku owners. There was a lot of food and it was delicious, though I think a few people were a little uncomfortable because the menu included live abalone, which were then cooked in front of us. I have to admit I didn't really like seeing my dinner move right before I ate it and felt bad that we were basically cooking them alive, but then I figured if I didn't eat it, it would all have been for nothing, so I did (and it was tasty).


After that we were free to do as we pleased, so after (very slowly) finishing (all of) my dinner, I took a soak in the (hot spring?) bath in the minshuku and then showed up for the social event we had planned, which turned out to be a quiz about Chiba Prefecture! Despite doing abysmally for most of the questions (things like which countries have direct flights out of Narita Airport, which vegetables Chiba produces the most of in Japan, etc.), my partner and I managed a comeback victory with our knowledge of Chiba's sister cities! Admittedly, since we both work for the city it might have been a little unfair, but with a prize of free biwa (loquat) ice cream the next day on the line, what could we do? :)

The rest of the night was spent happily chatting and having semi-serious discussions with some other ambassadors, which was probably one of the best parts of the trip. Like I said earlier, I felt like I really got to know some of them better and it's always nice to be able to have discussions with people that at least feel meaningful, so I went to bed late but pretty happy (despite having to get up very early the next day).

And that was day one of the tour! This post is already pretty long so I'll cut it short here, but stay tuned for day two shortly. :D

Major stops (Tateyama/Minami-boso):
- Okinoshima (http://www.city.tateyama.chiba.jp/en/page003585.html）
- Shirahama Marine Art Museum (http://homepage2.nifty.com/kaibi/)
- Omeidosou Minshuku (http://www.omeidoso.com/)

trip down memory lane

So I have yet another weekend of adventure to post about, but I'm feeling lazy so I will just do it plus-minus style (as we do on the CIR forums, haha). It was a really good weekend and will probably mostly just be pluses, so you can think of it as bullet-style if you prefer. :)

+ Spent my two days of summer vacation + the first of two three-day weekends (in a row) in September with a trip to Nagoya
- I only get two days of summer vacation (how I miss real summer vacation)

+ Spent the first day paragliding in Shizuoka! Got to try paragliding by myself off a little hill and also tandem off a mountain, plus free lunch (which was tasty)
+ Going up the mountain for the tandem jump involved riding what looked like a homemade one-rail open train literally up the side of the (rather steep) mountain. It was great.
- Forgot my camera so I have no proof
+ Tandem flight was awesome~
- Shorter than I expected and didn't get to see Mt. Fuji
+ Staff was super friendly, including the teacher who let us all run straight at him all day as we paraglided off the bunny hill and a lady who even gave me a ride to a station an hour away on her way home from work)
+ Got to see my TOA roommate after that and crash at her place

+ Made it safely to Nagoya
+ Saw my high school friend Megumi for the first time in yeearrrs and managed to catch up during lunch despite her busy schedule
+ Got to see my host mom again!
+ They let me stay at their house again
+/? Almost nothing has changed since I was there - same walk I took every day on my way to work, same room and bed (and pillowcase even), same placemats
+ Went to go see cormorant fishing with my host mom in Gifu
- Felt bad for the cormorants like I thought I would

+ Remembered how to get to Nanzan and wandered around campus (hasn't changed a bit)
+++ Met up with two of my fellow IJ600 classmates and spent a great day wandering around old places in Nagoya like Sakae, singing karaoke, and eating yummy meals
+ Finally did purikura again
- Don't have a digital copy of the pictures
+ Ended up spending the night at my friend's and it was super fun

+ Went to an event by Nagoya Swings, the group that I swing danced with and performed with during a play while studying abroad
+ Remembered some faces (surprisingly, after 3 years) and one remembered me
- Only stayed for an hour and most of it was a beginner's lesson
+ Went to dinner with some other Nanzan friends after that (at Outback Steakhouse, haha)
+/- It was tasty but expensive
+ They arranged for a cake to welcome me back and congratulate two others on graduating!
+ Got home in the rain before the typhoon really started to hit

- Had to leave on Monday

--- Typhoon was mostly blown over but had already done its damage to public transportation
+ Managed to get on a shinkansen to Shizuoka not long after getting to Nagoya Station, with a seat (and power charger)
- Had to get off at Shizuoka and wait for a couple of hours until the river water went down a little
+/- Managed to get on the first shinkansen that made it back to Tokyo, after being literally pushed inside and against all the other people already in it
- Stood the whole way squished between lots of other irritated people

+ Made it back in time for my Analogfish concert
++ Concert was great! Got to see them pretty up-close


+++ Safely made it back home to Chiba, tired but happy after a busy five days

disaster prevention drill

So September 1 is national disaster prevention day in Japan (because as we all know, Japan is a very natural disaster-prone country), and so I'm sure there were events going on all over the country in relation to that. In Chiba each year there are events, but this year was a little bit special! There's something called the Coalition of Nine Regional and Local Governments, including prefectures and major cities in the Tokyo metropolitan area, and every year they hold a joint disaster prevention drill. This year's host happened to be Chiba, so everything happened on a much larger scale than usual.

There were drills taking place all over the city, but the main event took place in the Soga Sports Park, which is a huge area for sports that includes Fukuda Denshi Arena, the home stadium for Chiba's pro soccer team JEF United, Fukuda Denshi Arena, where my frisbee team has a big joint practice every month, and more playgrounds and fields.

I went with a couple of new arrivals to Chiba City, and although disaster prevention drills may not sound super exciting, it was actually really cool! We got to see things like tanks/helicopters/fire trucks/water trucks and other vehicles that get employed in disaster situations, other cool technology like a little plane that can be launched by hand to connect wireless transmissions over a wide area, and things like baths/showers/toilets that get set up in emergency areas (which was cooler than it sounds, I promise).


Other highlights included getting to see them make emergency rations and even get some, seeing them work on a replicated burning building, and getting to ride the earthquake truck, where we first felt a simulated earthquake of the same magnitude of how March 11 felt in Chiba, then how it felt in Tohoku. (It was pretty intense.)

PM Abe is in there somewhere, I promise

But the biggest highlight of the day was seeing the Prime Minister! I had no idea that he would be there (but my coworkers apparently did), but I guess the joint disaster prevention drill was big/important enough for him to be there, so he came! I couldn't get any good pictures, but I was definitely less than 20 feet away from him and one of the people I came with even shook his hand! It was pretty cool to see him in person and also dressed in work clothes (or maybe it was some sort of uniform? Rescue worker-ish). The mayor was also dressed the same way (it was interesting to see him in not a suit for once) and was also looking super happy, though I can't say I blame him!

Anyway, I thought I was pretty well-informed about disaster prevention before, but this was a good chance for a refresher and also get to some new information (and free stuff!), so I'm glad I went! Apparently the joint disaster prevention drill takes place in a different member city each year, too, so going this year was pretty lucky. :)

tokyo + narita-san

So the next in my series of catch-up posts is my weekend in Tokyo/Narita with my friend Dylan from middle school! We hadn't seen each other since high school but he was in Japan for a few days (after a year spent traveling around the world for research, what) and knew I was there so we met up! We spent Saturday in Tokyo and on Sunday we visited Narita-san Shinshoji Temple (as per my suggestion, like a good Chiba-kun Ambassador).

So on Saturday we met up and had lunch in Asakusa before seeing the famous Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate) and walking down the big street toward Sensoji Temple, where we got omikuji fortunes (mine was just regular luck but Dylan's was the best luck) and had a good look around, before heading toward the riverside for a short boat ride! We took a 'water bus' down the river and admired the sights (though I have no pictures since I'd done it before), before heading to Harajuku. When we got there we went to a really cool place called the Design Festa Gallery, which was a free exhibit space with lots of artists displaying and selling their stuff - there was a lot of cool works so I would definitely go there again! We finished up the day by stopping by Akihabara for (more) shopping and wandering around (and almost went to a maid cafe but didn't).

The next day, we headed off to Narita-san before Dylan's flight home in the afternoon! I've been to Narita before but only just around the station (and technically Narita-san but only as far as the gate), so I was looking forward to seeing the temple for the first time. I had heard that it was a really beautiful place, and I was not disappointed!

The road leading to the temple was very picturesque and interesting, with lots of little shops and stone statues of the zodiac animals all along the way. There was even a store for the Narita Yume Bokujo farm that I went to on the unofficial store, and hearing me talk about their soft serve, Dylan had some and said it was possibly the best he'd ever had (yeahh).

Anyway, then we entered Narita-san Temple, which was huge and very interesting. My main impression was of lots of clusters of things: lots of stone figurines placed among rocks, lots of turtles and koi in a pond, lots of what looked kind of like gravestones (? though I'm pretty sure they weren't) on the hills, lots of buildings! We just wandered around slowly around and even came across a waterfall that really felt like it could have been back in the mountains of Georgia. Weird. We also came across the Great Peace Pagoda, that included a time capsule put in a few decades ago to be opened in about 400 years (I think), including a message from President Reagan! Pretty cool.


I'm sure we only saw a tiny fraction of the giant area that makes up the temple grounds, and I would love to go back to see the rest. Maybe in the fall, once the leaves have changed color? Something tells me it would be breathtaking (and probably crowded). Anyway, I'm glad to have been able to take a friend to a famous place in Chiba during his short Japan experience! :)

coffee collection

Just a glimpse of the growing collection behind my laptop. Whenever my supervisor's canned coffee comes with a toy, it will inevitably mysteriously appear on my desk! I have to admit, this is probably one of my favorite little things about work. :) Though it also seems like I may be running out of room soon...

chiba three generations festival

 So this post is way overdue, but last month was Chiba City's 親子三代祭り (Oyako Sandai Matsuri), or the Three Generations Festival! I went to it for the first time last year shortly after arriving in Chiba City, so it was yet another full-circle moment that made me think about how things have (and haven't) changed from a year ago. One thing that didn't change: it was a lot of fun!




Last year I went early to help the CCIA set up and watch the youth exchange students carry a mikoshi (portable shrine) down the street, but this year I just spent a little time wandering around and seeing the festival in the afternoon by myself, which I didn't have a chance to do last year. Even though I think most people envision the countryside or smaller towns when they think of traditional festivals (I do, at least), I feel like none of the excitement or atmosphere was lost in the much more urban setting of downtown Chiba! There were still people everywhere, food stands everywhere, and even performances taking place all around.



After that I headed into the CCIA to have somebody help me put on my yukata (taking those kimono lessons clearly didn't help much, though I blame it on the fact that kimono and yukata obis are different) and start practicing the Chiba dance for the festival! Having danced it for roughly 2.5 solid hours last year, I had thought at the time that I'd remember the dance forever but alas, this was not the case. Luckily, it's actually pretty simple and it came back quickly.



And then it was time for the real thing! The way it works is that groups and organizations from around the city (though on-the-spot participation is also encouraged!) line up all around a certain route and follow it around the city, dancing the whole time! In the center of the streets are taiko groups from the city and all around the prefecture that drum while we dance. One of my favorite parts about participating is that you get to see the taiko performances up close while dancing!

By the end, we were all pretty tired and hot and sweaty, but it was still a lot of fun! I got to see the mayor dancing this year, which was a goal of mine since I had somehow missed it last year, not to mention lots of cute little kids doing some intense taiko drumming. Definitely a good time. :)