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? :)

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

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!

out with a bang

So somehow before I realized it, I've become a third-year JET! (Weird...still not used to introducing myself that way at all.) I think that's mostly due to the fact that July was probably the busiest month I've had so far (or at least, it's the month in my planner that has the most writing on it).

In July, I...:
 - went and saw takarazuka for the first time ever with a friend, who happens to be a takarazuka expert! Takarazuka is a type of musical theater where all the performers are women, and the show (Rose of Versailles: Oscar Edition) was dramatic and sparkly and confusing and awesome.  :D
 - went to another Analogfish concert, but this time also with Asian Kung-Fu Generation, who is much more famous by far. Consequently I spent the first half (their half) being totally crushed in the midst of happy dancing AKFG fans, but I managed to be near the front for both them and Analogfish, so it was great. Technically I went with my friend but we didn't actually end up finding each other until after, oops.
 - had catchup/goodbye meals with friends/coworkers/predecessor
 - interpreted for a presentation/courtesy visit for the representatives of the Red Bull Air Race, which will be taking place in Chiba City. Managed to do most of the presentation interpreting on-the-fly, which was pretty cool.
 - met up with my parent's friends who were visiting Tokyo and watched them buy lots of brand name stuff (apparently it's much much cheaper in Japan)
 - interpreted for the mayor at a museum event/reception for Kiwanis International, who had their annual convention at Makuhari Messe (a big deal)
 - was the emcee for the first time at our discussion for foreign residents instead of just an interpreter (and got to tour the Chiba City Zoological Park again)
 - performed in two yosakoi events (as detailed in my last post)
 - had lots of meetings for various types of AJET

But the peak of the month was definitely at the end, when my crazy schedule went something like this:
 - Friday evening: interpreting at a dinner hosted for the mayor of our sister city, Montreux (being the only interpreter at a dinner party is always a challenge...)
 - Saturday: accompanying the mayor to the new AEON mall in Makuhari, a sushi lunch, and then the poolside BBQ Swiss National Day event hosted by the Swiss Embassy in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Switzerland, where I interpreted for the mayor, met the Ambassador of Switzerland to Japan, and saw our sister city's mayor swim in a pool shaped like Lake Geneva (which borders Montreux)
 - Sunday: yosakoi event all day
 - Monday: being a bus guide, emcee, and interpreter for a group of diplomats who came to visit Chiba City for a study tour! My group visited Kanda University of International Studies, which had a really cool campus (I would probably have loved being a student there), before going to a presentation by the Economic Affairs Bureau/lunch reception, the Institute of Radiological Sciences, and the Chiba City Museum of Art. It was a reaaally long day but I had a pretty good time telling people where we'd go, etc. on the bus and then going around the different places with them. Afterward the Ambassador of Malawi to Japan personally thanked me and asked for my business card, which was pretty awesome. And so after arriving back in Tokyo with everybody in the evening (after some intense traffic and a slight fiasco involving peanuts)...
 - ...I headed to Shinjuku to meet some fellow CIRs who were around for Tokyo Orientation (sad I couldn't be a part of it this year), but only had time for one drink before...
 - ...heading straight to the airport to head to America for a week to be a bridesmaid in my high school best friend's wedding! Since that wasn't really Japan-related I won't go into too much detail here, but it was a wonderful (almost) week of seeing my college friend/sister during layovers, meeting my friend's relatives, seeing my high school friends again, and even managing to spend a night at home with my parents. And seeing my high school best friend happily married, of course. :)

And that's how I actually spent the day of my third anniversary in Japan flying somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. I think my second year of JET far exceeded the standard of awesomeness set by the previous year, and even though I can't really imagine how, I can only hope that my third and probably final year will do the same!

chiba yosakoi

As I may have mentioned before, summer is yosakoi season, and now we're in full swing! Starting with a few events last month, now we'll have performances almost every weekend until the end of September (plus a few more in October and November).

Our events in July were both in Chiba, first a festival called Boso Daisakusen (or as I like to translate it, Operation Boso), and then the Funabashi Festival. In keeping with the team's goal of promoting yosakoi in Chiba, Operation Boso took us up and down the Boso peninsula, which makes up most of the prefecture. 

Our first stop was a small rest area (?) in Nagara, where (if I remember correctly) a local yosakoi team is trying to get more people involved. We only had a few teams performing and a pretty small audience, but it was a fun way to start out the day and I enjoyed seeing the other teams - there was one dance involving teruterubouzu, or little white figures with faces that people hang up as charms for good weather, and some adorable kids singing and dancing with them.

Next we went down to Shirahama, where I went last year for a Chiba-kun Ambassador's tour  , which also happens to be southernmost tip of the peninsula. They were having a festival called Maruguru, complete with a karaoke competition and lots of food stalls. Unfortunately we didn't get the chance to go up the hill to see the gorgeous view of the ocean there, but this time there were lots of people watching all the yosakoi performances and they seemed to enjoy it. :D

Our last stop was a shopping mall in Tateyama, where my friends from Sosa and Kamogawa came to see us perform! This was the first time I got to perform for people I know, so that was pretty exciting. :)

And then the next weekend, we performed in Funabashi's festival, despite some rain. My camera ran out of batteries so I don't have any pictures, but it was a big crowded event complete with floats/portable shrines, and lots of fun. I remember being really impressed because one of the teams that performed with us was actually a high school band, who even performed a few songs (with harmony and everything) - talk about multi-talented!

It's a lot of fun to travel to yosakoi events all around the country (we have another big tournament coming up in Nagoya at the end of the month), but it's also pretty great to be able to perform in familiar local places, too. :D