week 42

I felt a bit rubbish on Monday and so only stayed at school till lunch. I then went home and rested. I was fine though for the rest of the week, if only my Japanese co-workers took a few hours off of work when they were sick, perhaps they would feel heaps better, get well quickly and not spread their germs….
I was at the gym and tennising as usual this week and I also had English with the taiko ladies and in harue. On Wednesday I also went to sarahs to have coffee and catch up as I hadn’t seen her in ages. It was really nice to have a long chat about life in maruoka.
The weekend was fun too.On Saturday I was up early to plant rice in a paddy field- obviously! I joined a group of internationals from Fukui on this fun trip where we got to see how hard it really is for the people we see bent over in the fields looking after the rice crops. I was praying that the rain would hold off as the thought of being in a muddy field in the pouring rain at 9.30am did not fill be with excitement. And as luck would have it, the rain did hold off for the hour we were planting. We arrived at the field just to the north west of fukui city and after an opening speech- of course- we were told to remove our shoes and socks. I being the organised gaijin had decided to bring Wellington boots, but when I arrived I was told I didn’t need them because I would go into the muddy field with naked feet and legs :S considering we had just had two days of rain, I was a little anxious about being in the mud, but it was actually quite fun! I squelched around and planted rice seeds and got smooth skin at the same time. I now realise why it is that so many old Japanese people have crooked backs. Planting rice is tiring! Luckily however, nowadays most of the planting is done by machine. After the planting we went into a farm building to eat onigiri and see the harvested rice having its coating removed. The seed coating which looks like a powder after it is removed, is recycled by being used with pickles and other random Japanese dishes. It was a fun morning talking to some new people, playing with some cute kids who go to one of my shogakkos and learning about rice!
After the rice extravaganza I went with Meagan to have a peek around seibu and then I headed off to play Frisbee in the poooooooooooouring rain in Matsuoka. That evening I went for dinner with Meagan and kim to 100 yen sushi, which as always was scrumptious. We met up with john a bit later at my house for ume shu and ice cream. What better way to end an evening!?
On Sunday Meagan and I were up and running in the morning. We had a good run around maruoka. It is lovely to run around my local area. It is wonderful noticing new things. Houses and beautiful architecture, gardens, restaraunts and such like. We then met up with John, kim, becca and sarah and drove over to Mikuni for their big annual doll festival. I had only been to Mikuni twice before and it hadnt left a lasting impression, but this festival was quite good fun. It was set in the back streets of mikuni, in an area i hadt explored. When we arrived at 12 there were so many cars and so many people. it was chaotic. After finding a sneaky parking space we walked up to where the action was. We basically just followed the crowds. We gathered infront of the main shrine, and managed to climb up on to a wall which turned out to be one of the best ideas of the day! More and more people kept arriving and gathering outside the shrine. We had no idea why, but decided to wait and see what happened! After 40 mins of waiting huge wooden floats with characters from Japanese stories and myths were pulled along. The floats were of varying quality, and some had children on them too, some had musicians playing different instruments. There were also men on top of the floats with big poles. Their job was to push the electricity cables up so that the floats fitted underneath! It was quite amusing to watch them struggle to do this. We were so lucky to be out of the way because

a) these floats were big and they were knocking into people

b) the men were pissed as farts. pulling the floats in one hand, sake or beer in the other.

c) it was a grand idea to try and spin these 30ft tall floats as fast as possible, hence things got a little out of control.

It was so funny watching the mayhem. you just know that this would have been a much more sedate and organized affair in the UK with sectioned off areas so noone got hurt. But not in Mikuni! We had a wander around the food stalls up to the shrine and then walked around the streets a bit. I saw some of my students, which i was really pleases about. On friday there had been a meeting after school to tell all the students not to attend this festival. The teachers had said that they should stay at home and study. I was really angered by this as it is dictatorship to the maximum. These poor kids have such crappy lives and this event happens once a year, why should they go?!? There were teachers on patrol apparently at the festival to look out for students. I didnt see any teachers but i saw about 15 students, wohoo rebellion! A big group of JETs decided to try the ice cream shop selling flavours such as salt, carrot, spinach, and other delights... i declined the offer!