week 11

I was lucky enough to have Monday off this week due to another bank holiday type day- health and sports day. Although I had planned to have a chilled day after the excitement of Osaka, it didn’t quite go to plan!! I got up at 9.30 to watch one of the boys from my host family play football. Whilst at football I spoke to John on the phone and had my arm twisted (not very hard at all!) to go to the Takayama festival in neighboring Gifu prefecture. The drive was almost four hours through some of the most beautiful scenery. The tiny winding roads were a little hairy at times but the views of the mountains, crops and random traditional houses dotted around was magnificent. When we approached Takayama, the Hida mountains were visible (the Japanese Alps). They were snow capped shadows stood tall and engulfing the town. They were amazing. The takayama festival has been held twice a year since the 16th century and is supposedly japan’s third best festival (although the Japanese do appear to have a statistic such as this for every event, place and person). The festival is to celebrate the approach of autumn and to do so, a number of huge elaborate gold floats that are lit up and paraded through the town.





















When we arrived in Takayama we got shuttle bus to where the action was. There were many festival stalls aligning the river, where many children were splashing around in the sun. the town was really busy. After getting some food (the Japanese style omelete) we walked through the crowds to look at the floats which were decorated with carvings, dolls, woven curtains, laquerware and bamboo blinds. They were lovely. Walking past these floats, we came to the Nikko Toshogu Shrine. It was a rather magnificent shrine which sat on top of a hill overlooking the town. I walked up to the shrine in awe of the golden insides. I then borrowed 5yen to throw into the shrine clap twice, pray and bow. After doing so I went to one of the demure Japanese shrine maidens dressed in white kimonos to purchase some lucky pendants.



















Following our visit to the shrine we wandered around the town which had many small old wooden houses, that were very beautiful yet quite touristy. Because of the festival these narrow were also decorated with lines of Japanese lanterns which were lit later that evening. Whilst strolling around, we came across a shop that was like Aladdin’s cave! I couldn’t quite believe what was inside. From floor to ceiling there were Japanese souvenirs, toys, ceramics and so forth cluttered together with a thin coating of dust. There was no lighting and we could barely fit through the door. But so many of the things inside were lovely! The old lady who owned it did not seem concerned at all by the state of her shop. It was superb!



















As evening fell we had some more yum food (sweet potato sticks and red bean and chestnut cakes) and then fought our way (literally- but us gaijin have hips which were a great help in the battle) to catch a glimpse of the lit up floats and the musicians riding inside them who played mesmerizing beats. We ended up waiting for ages but it was worth seeing. Another shattering day, after a tiring weekend. We arrived home after the long drive, with the thought that school opened in only a few hours..zzzzz

The week at school was fine although I still feel that I am not put to best use. I constantly try and suggest things that I could do, but the teachers are so adamant about completing the stooped text book that is rubbish anyway. I had tennis and rock climbing again and then at the weekend I had the chance to catch up on some rest. On Saturday morning however I had to be up early to go to a pottery class with a few of the other JETS in Ono. Meagan went to the class (which runs once a month) and said it was lots of fun so I thought id give it a whirl. It wasn’t long after I began the lesson that I remembered how rubbish I am at crafts. We each had a little wheel and a big lump of dark brown clay. After having a quick demonstration from our teacher who made a bowl, we were left to our own devises. However even the teacher cocked up as he had actually meant to make a mug! Therefore I felt that it was ok for me to mess it up a bit. The clay was odorless and did not have the pleasurable texture I imagined and Patrick Swayzee didn’t sit behind me and caress my hands – not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing though.

I found it really tricky to get the clay to stay where I wanted it too. My mug ended up being too thin, and too unmug shaped! Therefore Mr teacher salvaged it and made it into a small vase/jug/pot thing. Guess what ur getting for xmas Mum?! I then tried again at making a damn mug. Once again I had a few problems which were comical to the little old Japanese woman and the teacher. I know I’m rubbish but please stop laughing and pointing. But after the 3hr session I had made an object which resembled a mug, some odd bowl type thing and the first thing I made- the ‘pojase’. It was fun but frustrating because im not very good at things like pottery and I like things to be perfect and my creations were far from that! But fun was had and my hands felt really soft afterwards! So it was all worth it!

After the class Emma, Meagan and I went and bought some sushi and took it up to Ono castle to eat. We sat on benches in the beaming sun with the castle behind and a magnificent view of the surrounding areas. Very nice. And I even got a biology lesson about praying manti (?) on the way down from the castle.

That afternoon I visited Miss Tempest’s residence in Ono which was nice and then headed back to fukui to get a few things from the shops. I visited a really good 100yen shop and a toys r us. The latter was a little disappointing as the range of toys was quite a lot smaller than I remembered- but was that just because I was a lot smaller at the time and so things looked bigger? I hope not. That evening I sat curled up under a blanket with a mug of tea and some mochi and fell asleep by about 9.30!!






















Ladies and gentleman my name is alex and I have a mochi problem. Its official, I do have an addiction to sweet mushed up rice with red bean. Its not something all gaijin like by any means, but for some reason I have suddenly fallen in love with the stuff. Im concerned that it contains some kind of classified drug, but as of yet I haven’t discovered anything. But I need to curtail this addiction that is spiraling out of control.

On Sunday apart from eating copious amounts of mochi, I played tennis and then went to the Maruoka festival with J and K. there were lots of people about in Maruoka, many of whom looked rather mafia like and scary. I was told that all the festival stalls are owned by the mafia who try to lure kids into the perils of gambling, and I could certainly believe it. We had a munch on some food and went to the shrine and up to the castle. It was nice to just have a mellow day walking around. Unfortunately there wasn’t much happening at the festival as the main events were the following day. But I wasn’t too disappointed. Instead the 3 of us went on an adventure to see my secret shrine which was amazing once again. We walked up the zillions of old, tiny crumbling steps and watched the sun start to descend. It was lovely. We had a look at the small statues of gods, many of which I was informed were the gods who kept a watch over children who had died before their 7th birthday. These statutes had red ribbons tied around their necks.

The following hour was a hair raising drive up a mountain-literally! We found a nice little mountain road that turned into complete vegetation and huge boulders. We ruined a poor couple’s romantic evening as I don’t think they were expecting to see a car full of gaijin driving up this remote and deserted track!! It was funny yet a little terrifying towards the end as the mountain simply went up and up. We ended up turning around and going back the way we came, passing the super views of Fukui as night fell and also passing a couple of deserted ‘camp sites’, a dam and a waterfall. We always find the adventures!!