Fire Festival

There was a little bit of excitement in Akita prefecture today.  AIU arranged a bus so students could visit a fire festival nearby.  It was a curious event.  When we arrived people were standing around little fires, facing a Shinto priest who was reading something traditional and important that we couldn’t really understand.  Then the crowd broke up to get cups of hot sake or tea and mikans (Japanese oranges–satsumas in America).  Several people began directing us in to various spots thanks to an announce that we were visiting from the university to see a local tradition.

 

Next, everyone walked over to a big bonfire that was being lit.  People began throwing things into it, and we found out that they were throwing out the old charms that they received from Shinto shrines in the previous year.  Burning the charms of the last year in special fires is the traditional way to dispose of them–every year the charms have to be renewed.  Once the fire was burning strongly one man picked up a bundle of kindling attached to a rope, lit the kindling, and began swinging it around.  I’m not sure what the significance of this is supposed to be, but it was cool to watch.  However, after the first man finished people began trying their hands at it in every corner, and pretty soon we had to watch where we were standing.  A lot of AIU students tried it too (not me, I’m a chicken when it comes to fire).

 

 

 

 

After an uneventful return and dinner, I remembered that I had found a sledding hill a few days before, so a few of us decided to hike into the park with our makeshift “sledges” and go sledding.  It was lots of fun!  It took some work to get our two little trails working, but pretty soon we’re sliding and spinning to the bottom.  Since we didn’t have proper sleds, it didn’t always work very well, and the thigh deep snow sometimes made getting back up the hill interesting, but it was a great time.  We’re hoping to go again–once we’ve warmed up!

 

Japanese word of the day:  kaji / かじ  (kah-jee)  noun: fire

Hokkaido: First Day

The first trip I went on after I arrived in Japan was a trip to Hokkaido, the north island of  Japan.  At the end of September we had a Monday off of school for “Respect for the Aged Day,”  so a big group of us headed out on Thursday night to see the sights.  The trip was completely student organized–a Czech graduate student who lived here last year had the idea to bring some new students on trip similar to one that he had already done.  I heard about the trip later than a lot of people so I decided to go only 24 hours before we left.  Even though it was a last minute decision, it was probably on of the single best decisions I’ve made since I got here.  It was a great weekend.

A group of 15 of us set out from AIU on a Thursday night.  My good friend Titus from the US was going too, a few of the others I knew from classes or the dorms, but I didn’t know anyone else very well.   For the long leg of our journey we had made a group reservation on a ferry.  The only problem is the ferry starts boarding at 6:40 and leaves at 7 am.  Which meant that we had an entire night to kill in Akita city and had to find some way to entertain ourselves.

It turned into a memorable night.  Our trip leader J. walked us through the rain to an all night bar that he knew of.  We shared umbrellas in the rain as we walked and talked about what we wanted to do in Japan.  Unfortunately, J.’s friends’ bar was busy and didn’t have enough room for 15 dripping gaijin.  However, they gave us directions to a karaoke place and an extra umbrella.  In Japan, lots of karaoke parlors are open all night (in this country, groups rent small rooms to do karaoke in privacy with their friends) and they usually have a discount for those unbusy hours.  So we rented a room and stayed up singing till 5 am.

We walked a little way, looking for some breakfast, and ended up taking taxis to the ferry landing.  It took us half an hour to write down all our names and addresses.  Some students had only been learning Japanese for a couple weeks, and I can vividly remember having people sound out their names so I could write them down phonetically.  Then I sat with Cat, who was tallying up prices, while everyone else ran off to get food before the boat departed.  It was my first time spending much time with her, even though we lived only two rooms from each other, and we were both realizing that we had a good chance of gettting along well.

There was a small panic at about 6:45 when the other students still hadn’t returned from the convenience store.  Cat shoved all the papers and tickets at me, left her bag at my feet, and ran after everyone else.  I got watch all of them run to the building just in time to make the ferry.

We had a shared room with cubbies and floor space for sleeping (actually we had two rooms, but our Japanese wasn’t good enough to understand that until the return trip).  We settled our things and then made our way up the deck of the ship.  Standing at the back, we watched the dock pull away and the city sprawl under the early sun.  It was great feeling, and despite the earlier rain, and the tiredness, it was a perfect start to our journey.

After the boat left port, most everyone went back to sleep.  I was too restless.  I stayed up and talked with Cat for while, until she too needed to sleep.  Then I wandered indoors and watched the scenary.  Japan is absolutely beautiful from the sea.  Full of mountains and some mist, sailing in a boat surrounded by bright blue water.

After a confusing conversation with an old Japanese man (who wanted to know where I was from and then proceded to explain how much he loved skiing (I didn’t really understand that part)), I headed to bed myself.  I only slept about three hours (we had a ten hour journey on the ship) before I was too restless to sleep anymore.  I went back up to the ship and wandered around some more.

Things I remember from that trip:

The water was so blue–I didn’t want to look away!

The conversation with the old man, one of my first real connections to regular people in Japan.

A man who moved from place to with his guitar, playing as he went.

Wandering, bumming into one of the other students, talking a little, and then just looking out at the waves.

Seeing the very first view of the north island as we came around the edge of it.  For no real reason, it was so exciting and so beautiful.

The water was so blue.  The sun was so warm.  The sound of the water. It was a perfect day.

Knowing everyone else was sleeping and missing it.

Japanese word of the day:  fune ／ふね  (foo-nay)  noun: boat, ship

Fresh Snow

Fall Semester ended a few days before Christmas and now Winter Session has started. There have been a lot of goodbyes here at AIU as the single-term students head home and the long term students head out to travel. Now most of us have collected back here, with a few new additions, to take classes over the winter break.

I traveled myself for a week, starting on Christmas day, with my friend C. We saw the sights and then parted ways in Tokyo. She’s starting an internship in Kawagoe near the capital while we start classes here. I had a lot of fun traveling with her, and I wish her well–her internship is going to being really challenging.

Here at AIU, we’ve mostly settled in for the winter. The snow is already thigh-deep. The six and seven foot snow poles that line the roads and walkways don’t seem quite so funny anymore. The people who are having the hardest time are our new students. They have just arrived from Egypt and they told us they were swimming outside last month. I can hardly believe it. I’m having fun in the snow–when I don’t get stuck, that is. I love it a lot. I think it’s more snow than I’ve ever seen before. In the same that Akita weather is always rainy, it’s vaguely snowing everyday here. Last week, I took out my garbage and in the few hours I’d been inside it the sky dropped a foot of powder snow. The weather is pretty mild however; it never gets too cold here. Nonetheless, Japanese buildings don’t really have central heating, so I’ve been staying in my cozy dorm, getting over a cold and knitting.

Today marks the second day of winter classes. All I’m taking is a Japanese language class because the schedule is so intense. We meet for 8 hours a week! However, I much prefer my current teacher over my last one and I am much more motivated to study.

That’s the past month in a nutshell. I’m working on several projects, and among them, hopefully I’ll be able to add more stories of my time here and more interesting facts about Japan.

Filler Edition

So, I’m working on a few updates that will hopefully be up and running soon. In the meantime, while doing background research I stumbled across this photo blog. It’s about 10x coooler than mine–you should definitely look at it if you want a view of the local countryside. I’m not sure who writes it–they’re not a student at my school, but I’m pretty sure they live in central Akita (they blog about places that I know of/have visited). I think they might be Korean. Check it out for the beautiful photos if nothing else:

http://www.mooniesworld.com/

Weekend Trip to Tokyo: Part 2

On Saturday, k. had to stay at home because she was officially sick, but the rest of us decided to explore some more.  Now, most people visiting Tokyo for the first time would visit all the best historical and sightseeing spots, but with two girls in the group and being surrounded by Japanese fashion, we headed for some of the shopping districts.  First we headed to Harajuku for shopping, lunch, and seeing a shrine (though not in that order).  We got a big surprise when, after wandering around looking for a restaurant that didn’t have a waiting list, we came across an American-style burger place.  It was a little bit expensive, but they gave us more food than we could eat–it was like being home!

Once we were no longer hungry and distracted, we head to Meiji Shrine, which is right by the station exit.  This shrine was created by the order of the Meiji Emperor (who was responsible for opening up and modernizing Japan in 1848).  In the middle of the city, he had a small forest planted, with a lily garden and wide paved square within the shrine.  At every entrance are tall torii gates that you must pass through to enter the shrine.  (They’re taller and wider than any others that I’ve seen so far, and I think they’re the largest in Japan.)

After one last small(er) torii, you reach the group of buildings that make up the shrine.  The main part is a large paved square enclosed by by walls.  At the far end is a god tree–a tree marked with rope and strips of paper to mark that a kami (god/spirit) lives there–that is surrounded by a wall of wishes.  Past the tree is the shrine itself, though people can only enter the front to pray and offer a few coins.  This shrine–since it was commissioned by the Meiji Emperor–is very large and beautiful, but it’s difficult for a casual visitor to see much.

Meiji Shrine is really popular for weddings.  While we there, we saw three couples, including one very grand and stately procession:

After seeing our fill of the shrine we headed for Takeshita Street, one of the main venues of alternate/teenage fashion in Tokyo.  It was ridiculously crowded, but a lot of fun.  There were sightseers and regulars, and plenty of the things to look at.  The stores all have their best stuff displayed, and plenty of the customers were dressed to the nines as well.  It’s an area that I’ve heard about since I first became interested in Japan as a teenager, so it was great to be able to see it in person.  Also, Harajuku is also known for its crepes (crazy fruit/sauce/ice cream/whipped cream/cheesecake combinations that are wrapped in soft pancake-type crepes.  They put them together in front of you).  We just had to get some:

We wandered and shopped for a couple hours, and the jumped one station stop to Shibuya, a higher-end district and our last stop for the night.  It was full of food and shopping, and we wandered there for an hour or so as well.  It was a big schock to get off the train.  Harajuku was popular and full of people, but Shibuya was RIDICULOUSLY busy.  It looked like Times Square in NYC.  The station is next to a big intersection where, after all the vehicle traffic signals cycle once, all the Pedestrian walk signals light up at the same.  The result is a big mass of people moving in their chosen direction.  The street corners look less like an intersection, and more like a plaza in a busy city.

The crowd in Shibuya.

The next day, Sunday, was the last day of our trip.  K. and k. had homework to do (and k. was still sick), so we had few plans and a slow start to the day.  In the afternoon, I went off on my own, exploring the local neighborhood.  I did a little bit of shopping (sweets, books, and keep-sakes) and about four hours of wandering.  One thing that I was reminded of as I walked down a local backroad was how in Japanese cities things are piled on top of each other.  Walking down a street of restaurants, bars, and houses (all looking similiar enough they’re hard to tell apart if you don’t know your way around), I came across small Buddhist temples, tiny cemetery plots, and shrines every block or so.  Over a high street-side wall, you catch a glimpse of an ornate roof, and the next moment, you’re watching past the entrance of a small local sanctuary.

After walking further, I came across Yanaka Cemetery.  It had some beautiful

fall foliage, but I didn’t plan on spending much time there until I found a sign that said the land had several large sections dedicated to the Tokugawa clan.  (The Tokugawa’s were the group that took power in the early 1600s and stabilised and unified Japan after its warring-states period.  Supposedly (with my limited Japanese, I’m only relying on wikipedia for this) the Tokugawa shogun rests there.)  I decided that was pretty cool and set about trying to find the famous tombs.  I had mixed success–two of the most famous plots have walls and locked doors around them, and I simply wasn’t tall enough to see much.  I did, however, see a few dozen cats.  They were every where in the cemetery, and I think I saw as many people taking pictures of cats as of trees or graves.

After leaving the cemetery I tried to head back to K. and k.’s, and ended up on the wrong side of the railway.  There were lots of big bright shops (very different from the cramped, twisty roads of K. and k.’s neighborhood), but I didn’t take much time to explore.  Instead I headed back to my friends.

They sent us off with one last meal of sukiyaki (soup, but better) and then Titus and I navigated our way to the night-bus pick up.  After some tricky conversations, we figured out which bus we needed and got ourselves settled.  (Along the way, we met up with two other pairs who were heading back to AIU, which meant some nice chatting.)  It was a long bus ride–longer than the first–and we realized the cause of the slow going when we woke up to trees covered in snow.  It was very beautiful, but by the time we reached Akita City it was mostly rain.  (We saw the snow just after first light, so I think we may have been up in the mountains still.)

Thus ended our long, fun Tokyo trip.  I can’t wait until I can visit my friends again!

Japanese word of the day: kankou suru / かんこうする  (kahn-koh-sue-rue)  verb: sightseeing, tourism

Weekend Trip to Tokyo: Part One

On Thanksgiving Day, Titus and I reached  Tokyo at the early hour of 6:30.  We took the night bus from Akita Station to Tokyo Station–a 9 hour trip.  We arrived to early morning light, tall buildings, and a crowd of salary men making their way to work.  After several confusing minutes of trying to decipher the train map, we got our bearings and headed for K. and k.’s place at Toyo University.  We got there about an hour earlier than planned, but luckily our friends were already awake.  So for the first time since last May, the four of us finally met again!

After a quick trip to a local bakery, we settled in to talk and nap while k. went to class.  It was

Salary men in Akihabara

great to have a chance to compare our experiences at very different schools in Japan and just to see each other.  When k. got back from class, we had a small lunch and then caught a train to Akihabara.  Akihabara is known as the electric town of Tokyo–it’s where you can buy the newest electronics and find the best deals.  It’s also famous for manga and anime and basically nerd-culture.  Like every other part of Tokyo, shops were piled on top of shops.  Our first stop was a little cafe on a second floor that K. and k. had found a couple weeks earlier.  It was relatively cheap and the food was good.  Then we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering in and out of shops searching for figurines and souvenirs.

That night for our Thanksgiving dinner, we to a small bar/restaurant near our friends’ apartment and ate yaki-tori and yaki-niku (grilled chicken and grilled meat that are the Japanese version of kabobs).  The man who runs the bar has a perpetually irritated expression, and he quickly directed us to a small table away from the bar.  Despite that, he was very helpful when we were trying to decipher the menu (he pulled out a selection of meats to show us what each one was).  We ate chicken and shared a couple  beers until it was obvious that we had over-stayed our welcome (and possibly ordered too many rounds of chicken and onion).

As one last Thanksgiving celebration, we ended up at one of K. and k.’s friends’ room, where the international students at Toyo University had gotten together to cook their favourite holiday foods.  They still had some dessert left, and we sat with them and ate apple and pumpkin pie while we played games.

The next day was much quieter because both our friends had morning classes and k. started feeling sick from her flu shot. We met K. at one of the university’s cafeteria for a small tour and food (curry!), and then spent most of the day talking, exchanging stories, and resting.  We made one short excursion for groceries so k. could cook adobo for us and some other friends.  Two of their Japanese friends, Ryohei and Aki, came to eat with us.  It was a lot of fun to sit around and talk with them.

Every time we met K. and k.’s friends, they were very welcoming and happy to hang out with us.  It made the weekend even more fun.

Japanese word of the day: ryokou / りょこう  (ryo-koh)  noun: travel

The Latest…

November has flown by here at AIU.  It’s been full of midterms, drama, and parties.  Christmas decorations have been up since before Halloween (just like being home!), and more of them appear in the mall every week.  It took a while to get used to not seeing any Thanksgiving decorations or advertisements, but there’s not really any place for turkey and stuffing in Japan.  In one of my Japanese classes, my teacher asked me what Thanksgiving was meant to be celebrating.   That was definitely an exercise in using my abstract vocabulary!  (Still, I think we had it easier than the English students who had to try and explain Bonfire Night.)

 

Various groups of American students have made arrangements to celebrate Thanksgiving.  One of the American professors has offered up his apartment for some of his students to come and make food.  For the main event, American and international students have arranged a potluck on Saturday in the student hall.  It sounds like it will be a full meal.

 

As for me, I’m doing something a bit more unorthodox for Thanksgiving.  I’m taking a trip to Tokyo for the weekend to visit my friends K. and k. who are studying abroad there.  I’m happy to see them for the first time since July and hear how their semester in Japan has been.  Also, my friend K. is a great cook, and I’m looking forward to having some of her cooking.

 

Take care, and have an excellent Thanksgiving.  Remember why you’re celebrating!

 

Japanese word of the day:  kansha matsuri / かんしゃまつり  (kahn-sha-maht-sue-ree)   noun, a festival for giving thanks, gratitude.

Some General Information

I’ve been doing some traveling lately, and I realized that before I write about it, I should probably provide a little more general information about Japan.  I know some things about Japan because I’ve studied it for a few years, but there’s a lot of useful information that I really don’t know.

So here we are: Japan, the overview.  Just in case you wanted to know.

Map does not include Okinawa to the southwest

Japan is a little smaller than California in terms of land mass.  It has aprox. 127 million people.  The capital is Tokyo (around 13 million people) and is located in the middle of the country.  There are 47 prefectures (~states) throughout the country.  AIU is located in Akita Prefecture, which is part of the Tohoku Region (aka, the backwoods).  Akita City is around 300 thousand people (though I’m not sure how….)

Japan is an island country.  There are four primary islands: Hokkaido in the north, Honshu in the center, Shikoku tucked under the southern end of Honshu, and Kyushyu to the south.  Okinawa is farther south, between China and the Pacific.  There are also many more tiny islands that are part of  the country.  The country is small but also skinny, so in the north it’s at about 45• latitude (comparable to mid-Wisconsin or Minn.), and in the south it ends around 25• (around the south tip of Florida).  Japan borders North and South Korea and China in the north eastern  part of Asia.

Rice is a primary food for the Japanese.  Rice cultivation was imported a few hundred years BCE from China or Korea, and gave people another reliable food source other than the ocean.  Rice and fish are still very important.  Seaweed and vegetables are also readily available.  Hokkaido is a too far north to easy grow rice, so their main agriculture comes from potatoes, corn, and diary.  Items are usually seasonally available, and Japanese love to have special seasonal flavors.  (Apples were ripe a few weeks ago.  Lately I’ve been seeing pumpkin flavors, and I’ve heard that corn/corn soup is a popular winter dish.)

Volcanoes formed the country, and there are still active ones throughout the islands.  There’s still a noticeable amount of geological activity: numerous earthquakes and plenty of hot springs.  The mountains are beautiful, but they make traveling, navigation, and living difficult. To get from one prefecture or another it is often necessary to go around the highest peaks.  Most of the land is difficult to use for agriculture–73% of the land is mountainous, and rice paddies depend on flat, low-lying (or at least well-irrigated) land.

Japan had a rich classic period (around 1000 AD) where they imported many ideas from Chinese culture.  During this time, the first novel in world was written (by a woman, thank you very much).  The classical age dissolved into a period of wars that lasted for about 500 years.  After that point things stabilised into the Edo (old name for Tokyo) Period.  Japan was united under one ruler and moved routinely through everyday life, and cut itself off from the rest of the world.  In 1868, the Meji Restoration brought Japan into the modern world, encouraging foreign exchanges of information, goods, and people.  Since ancient times, Japan has been ruled over by emperors, though they currently do not hold political power.  They are supposedly descended from a goddess, and if truth is told they hold the longest unbroken line of monarchial succession.

That (in a not-so-little nutshell) is some information about Japan.  It’s small, it’s crowded, there’s lots of rice, and it has a rich history that is still very much a part of it’s everyday life.

Japanese word of the day :  nihon / にほん  (knee-hone)  noun: Japan

AIU Festival–Fun, but Exhausting

The AIU Festival has been finished for two weeks.  It was a whirlwind of events, and (a little surprisingly) it lived up to expectations.  All the hard work that the students put in payed off and to be honest the festival was much better excuted than its American conterparts.

I spent Saturday watching a few friends rehearse and getting a start on my homework before I headed to the dormitory kitchen to help out the Czech students.  There are only two Czech students on campus so they needed all the help they could get to run their booth.  We spent the evening making signs, cabbage stew, and bramborak.  My job was blending the potatoes, which meant that I spent a lot of time kneeling on the floor over a blender.  (Hooray for student cooking!)  The bramborak, which were full of garlic and just a little chicken, were delicious, and we gave out samples to a lot of the international students.  Everyone loved them, and I’m hoping to cook them this winter as comfort food because that’s truely what they are.

Preparations and paper-cutting went on late into the night.  I started hearing people say “otsukare” (~”you must be tired”) around 3 p.m.  Usually this is reserved for late at night or after work, so it was easy to see that everyone was tired from working long hours.

The first day of the festival dawned cloud and rainy.  My friends and I wrapped up all our new signs in plastic wrap before hanging them out in the rain.  After that, I wandered the festival for a while, looking at all the vendors and rooms that had been set up.  When the food began running low in the afternoon, I helped out again with peeling potatoes and garlic.  Because we got so far behind (everyone really loved them) we even had a few volunteers who came and helped.  A few parents brought their kids and helped us peel the vegetables.  Later on, they got to try the first pieces of the new batch for all their help.

One thing I loved about the festival was that it was a chance to see Japanese people who were excited to see us.  Many students travel there to look at the university, and for people nearby I think it’s a fun local event.  One of the men who helped us with the potatoes said that he had come from Sendai (the next prefecture over).  L’s grandparents came for the entire weekend to watch her.  I’ve done a bit of traveling in Japan, and often times people are a bit wary of foreigners–they don’t understand us well, or they think we look funny.  But in this case, everyone was eager to talk and interact.  Also, people dressed to the nines!  Lots of students were in costume (a bear to sell fried bananas(?), zombies for the zombie room, halloween costumes for the kid’s halloween room), and there was also a lot of tradition dress and lolita outfits walking around.  It was great to see.

A Korean girl from one of my classes wearing a hanbok.

The second day was more exciting because that’s when the majority of the performances took place.  The sun was out bright and early and everyone was ready to go!  I helped out at the Czech stall again, but first we had a mandatory break to watch the EAP performances.  All the freshmen at AIU have to complete a set of English (something) Profieciency classes.  At the festival, they celebrate the end of these classes by creating a class performance.  (This is part of why my roommate didn’t sleep in September.)  One of my favourite groups did a skit about a Japanese girl introducing her American boyfriend to her father, after which they broke into a song from Hairspray.  They ended up getting second place in the competition.  One of my other favourites was my friend L’s group.  They created a scene with no words but sounds from pots, pans, and utensils that turned into a song.  It was fantasic!-and really challenging because it required them to work together to get the choreography just right.  Unfortunately, they didn’t place at all.  My roommate’s group won first place with a scene that intertwined Japanese calligraphy with English words.

After that I made bramborak for the rest of the morning.  I had a break for a kimchi (Korean) pancake, and some ice cream, and then at 2:30 I left for good.  First stop: watch Good Morning Toast, my friends’ new band, on stage.  They were pretty good!  I also got to see a few of the other bands on campus–very cool.  Afterwards, we all headed outside to watch another group of friends (^and the girl in front) do a swing dance number that the crowd loved.  They were followed up by the school’s dance club (all four sections of it).

The evening didn’t exactly wind down after that, but it did change direction.  The next performance was called “Namahage Drumming.” (nah-mah-ha-gay)  Drumming is an old part of Japanese culture and it has a lot of ritual and tradition that goes along with it.  As for the namahage, they are the resident boogey-man of the Akita region.  They are meant to come and scare bad fortune out of houses in the winter time.  They also scare children (kids who don’t work hard enough or ‘t behave well enough might be carried off into the mountains!) . The performance started with two people drumming, while three namahage danced, drummed, and then ran off into the crowd to do their job.  They had some fun growling at the international students, but they definitely made the little girl behind me cry, not to mention quite a few others.  At least in Akita, things that go bump in the night are still scary….   After that the three drummers returned without their costumes and began drumming.  They were really phenomenal.  The drums they use reverberate in your chest and your bones, and the drummers have very stylised, iconic arm movements.  Combined, it’s easy to imagine how menacing they could have been in the time of feudal Japan when they would have been used on a battlefield.

The last performance before the competition results and a student film was presented by the kanto group on campus.  Kanto refers to the eastern/northern region of Japan and it’s traditions.  The men carry out a large framework full of lighted lanterns.  While a group plays music  in the background, the participants raise the framework up into the air (it’s at least 20 feet tall).  Then things start to get exciting.  The crowd starts up a call and response chant with performers, and one by one the men add 4 ft staves to
the base, while balancing the entire apparatus.  As if this weren’t enough, the men aren’t simply holding the lanterns in their hands, they balance the posts on their palms, shoulders, backs, and heads.  And when they’ve really achieved something, they show their skill by opening a large fan in one hand.  And if they’re absolutely amazing, they next open a parasol in the other.

It’s incredible to watch them do this.  I was a little worried at first because soon after they got the lanterns into the air, one crashed into the building right in front of me.  (Fortunately it was just a mass of paper lanterns with lit candles falling into some crowded steps… …. )   But after that team got under control the performance was really amazing.  And one guy did manage to open a fan and a parasol while balancing it on his shoulder.

AIU Festival was a ton of fun.  I was really proud of my friends–everyone’s hard work paid off, and it was awesome to have a weekend of junkfood.  And I’m really glad I got to see the namahage and kanto performances because they really reminded me why I love Japan, even though I’m not always sure what I’m doing here.

Japanese word of the day:  otsukare-sama deshita / おつかれさまでした   (oat-scar-ray-sa-ma-desh-ta)  formal phrase, said to persons leaving work, or seen at the end of a long day.  Between friends: otsukare.  Often replied to with “Arigatou/Thank you”.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101008/ap_on_re_as/as_nkorea_succession

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101008/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_hungary_sludge_flood