More Rugby, A Beer Factory and Yanagawa

Hi everyone,
As promised here is a little summary of everything I have been doing the past 4 weeks.
On the 15 of January I attended a performance by the drumming group TAO.
I forgot my camera but, like many events in Japan, pictures were not allowed.
But the performance was quite good. One of the performers said that they would be returning to Fukuoka in May, so hopefully I will be able to see them again when I am back here.

On the 19th, there was a Christmas Party at the school.
Three groups of students sang a different Christmas song in Japanese.
My group sang "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town".
Then all the students and teachers sang the Japanese version of "Silent Night".

That weekend, I went with a few friends to another rugby game.
This one was a professional game and was held in a stadium.





On Christmas Day, all the students took a trip to the Asahi Beer factory.
Being able to see the whole process was quite interesting. But unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures of any of the most exciting things.





Just this past week I left my homestay and moved into a dorm about 10-15 minutes away from the school by train.
This past weekend I spent a day in a small town called Yanagawa with a couple students from the same dorm.
The town is famous for it's unagi (eel) and for boat tours through it's many canals.

Before taking our boat tour we walked around the town a bit and stopped bya few Shinto Shrines that were nearby.




This Shrine seemed brand new.

This young boy, along with his mother and younger sibling were inside the shrine when we arrived.

This man is a Shinto Priest.


Next we made our way to the boat dock and had a nice one hour tour of the canals.




The tour took us under several bridges.
Believe it or not, these next two pictures are the second lowest bride we went under.


Afterwards we were a bit cold and very hungry.
So we ate at a nearby unagi restaurant.
It was a bit expensive, but VERY good.

As for the future...
Right now, the plan is to leave the city and go to my first WWOOF farm by January 5th.
I will stay on that farm for 2 weeks, and then go to another farm in Fukuoka prefecture and stay for another two weeks.
After that I must renew my visa (which will probably involve going to Korea for a short period of time) before I can travel to another WWOOF farm somewhere else.
Right now I'm thinking of going to the Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe area, and then closer to Tokyo.

After January 5th (if all goes well) I'm not sure when I'll have internet access again.
Or cellphone reception for that matter...it'll be just like home!
Anyway, feel free to leave me some questions/comments.
I'll try and post at least one more time before I leave.
Oh, and
Happy New Year everyone!

Long time no blog

ごめんなさい皆さん！
Sorry everyone!
I've been too busy to blog the past few weeks.
And these next few weeks won't be any less busy since I'm moving out of my homestay tomorrow and then moving on to my first WWOOF farmstay a week from now.
But I do have many things to show you.
I'll post again soon.
じゃまた。

Chotto Clubin'

So last friday, as usual, there was a student organized party.
This time a bunch of us went to a karaoke place pretty close to the school.
I had a good time, but sadly I had to leave early because a good friend of one of the teachers I had met at a different student party, had bought tickets for a fellow student and I to a techno/electro show not too far away.
The forecast said there would most likely be a little bit of snow that night.
Nevertheless we decided to forego a cab/bus/subway as it was just about 10 minutes away on foot.
Believe it or not, the show was actually in a department store.
The place was called "eeny meeny miny mo".
The stage was set up on the top floor which was a large atrium.
When we got there there weren't may people there, and nobody was there to take out tickets.
We we wondering why we even bought tickets in the first place when it seems that anyone could just walk in.
We later found out that we had come in the wrong way, so we entered again through the proper entrance and got our wristbands.
We realized that there weren't very many people there because the big name DJs weren't scheduled to play for another hour.
As it got later, a great deal of people showed up.
Although there weren't many other foreigners there we did meet a small group of people, most of whom where from the UK.
One man said that he came to Japan for the World Cup Soccer Final in 2002 and just never went back.
Overall I had a good time.
Although the headliner who was supposed to be really good, was unable to show up because of food poisoning.
The walk back wasn't very fun, but luckily it wasn't snowing yet.
Here are some pictures of the show. Most of them didn't turn out too well. The image at the top of the post was taken from the deck of the top floor of "eeny meeny miny mo".







As always, leave a comment　if you like.
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving
じゃまった。

Clothes, Pizza and Rugby

Hey everyone,
I know it's been quite a while since I've posted anything.
I've been a bit busy with school lately.
But some blog-able things have happened within the past week or so.

I went shopping with my host mother and her son.
I didn't buy anything but I did see some interesting clothes.

While on this shopping trip I thought that I might buy a knit cap if I could find an affordable one. This one caught my eye for obvious reasons, not my style though.



This Obama T-shirt was $54.00. When I picked it up it felt like they only used 1/3 the amount of materials they use to make a standard t-shirt.


That same weekend I got another opportunity to walk around the city a bit. First I went back to the lake in Ohori Kouen (below) before getting a bit lost for a while, but eventually finding my way back home.



This past Wednesday I made pizza with my host mother. She must not bake very much because I ended up doing most of the work. We ran into a few problems, one being that we couldn't seem to move the pizza from the cutting board to the oven without it falling apart. But it was a lot of fun and it turned out surprisingly well for my first time making ebi (shrimp), onion, pepper and bacon pizza.






This past Friday we had a special farewell party for one of the teachers. All most all the students and a few teachers went out for Yakiniku and ShabuShabu. Afterwards a group of us went to a big arcade/activity center called Round 1.
There were some very interesting games.
This was a game where you virtually walk a dog...I don't recommend it.


Here's one where you get to drive a bus around Tokyo, while obeying all traffic laws of course. Once I remembered to drive on the left side of the road, it wasn't so bad.


Just last night while my host mother and son were at a big concert, I went to a jazz bar very close to the apartment with my host father. I soon found out he was very good friends with the owners, one of whom is a jazz pianist. They were interested in hearing about what I was doing in Japan and where I came from. I showed them Lopez Island on Google Earth and when they found out that I played music and liked the Beatles, I ended up playing drums on three songs: Let It Be, Get Back and Day Tripper. It was a bit embarrassing but quite fun and I had a good time.
[EDIT]
Answers the questions in the comments:
Ok, first off,
The club was small, and I mean VERY SMALL.
Besides myself, my host father and the two owners, one of whom played piano on all the songs, ther was a group of maybe 8 people at one table. That's it.
The "band" for two songs was a piano player and myself, and for one song we had a woman singing as well. The piano players wife took video of the songs with her camera. I gave them my email so they could send me the footage but I haven't gotten anything from them yet. When/if I do, I might post it here.

[2nd EDIT]
I forgot that I put Rugby in the title...
I went to a Rugby game last weekend. I went because my friend's host father is the coach of one of the teams.
I took a bunch pictures but none of them were that great.
Here are a few though:







By the way, the team in the pink jerseys is the host father's team, and they won the match.

That's about all that's going on here, I'll try and post more often (no really, I will..)

As always, if you have anything to say/ask leave a comment!
じゃあまった

Sumo Tournament

Hello everyone.
So here are some of the pictures/videos I took of the Sumo tournament this Tuesday, along with a little explanation of what it's all about.

The sumo ring or dohyo in Japanese is 18 feet (5.4m) square and 2 feet (0.6m) high. Suspended above it is a roof resembling a Shinto shrine. The four giant tassles in each corner signify the seasons of the year.

The sumo wrestlers, or rikishi, are divided into several different classes based on skill level. When we arrived, the matches of the second best sumo class had just ended. Before the top class (Maku-uchi) matches began, the rikishi enter and encircle the dohyo wearing their ceremonial aprons, which can cost about $4,000-$5,000 each.




For the second half of the dohyo-iri, or "entering the ring" ceremony, the top ranked rikishi called the yokozuna enters the dohyo wearing a ceremonial apron with a massive 25-35 pound hemp rope with paper cut in a zigzag pattern haning from it. These hemp ropes are an ancient religious symbol and are found hanging in Shinto shrines and in some Japanese households. The yokozuna begins the ceremonial dance by clapping his hands together, to attract the attention of the gods.

The yokozuna then lifts each leg high in the air and brings it down with a loud stomp to symbolically drive evil from the dohyo.




This is one of the gyoji or referee. The rank of a gyoji can be determined by the color of the fan he carries.



Now the matches finally begin, well, kind of.

Before each match can actually happen, the rikishi go through what is called shikiri. During this time the rikishi squat down in a "ready" position several times and glare at eachother before standing up, returning to their corner and scattering a handful of salt to purify the dohyo and protect themselves from injury. The length of the shikiri usually increases according to the ranks of the rikishi in the match, as it also helps build suspense and excitement among the spectators.

Once the match does begin, the rules are pretty straightforward. A rikishi loses a match when an body part aside from their feet touches the dohyo, or they are forced out of the dohyo by the other rikishi. Each matches usually last about 30 seconds or less.
Below are some photos, along with a video shot by a fellow student, of the very first of the maku-chu matches which was by far the shortest and, in my opinion, the most humorous match we saw.







This next match was one of the most interesting. Both rikishi ended up falling out of the dohyo and one of them took a sizeable chunk of clay out of one of the steps.



Some of the higher ranked matches are sponsored by certain companies. If this is the case, before the match men circle the dohyo carrying banners with the company name or logo on it. Each banner costs the company about $600USD, $300 of which goes to the winning rikishi. Below is a picture of the banners that were displayed before the final yokozuna match along with a video of the match itself. The yokozuna, named Hakuho, is the rikishi on the left. Right after the match, I attempt to zoom in on a couple groups of school children who were shouting and cheering quite a bit before the match began. When I focus on the dohyo once again, you can see Hakuho receiving his prize money from the gyoji. And soon afterwards you can see a rikishi beginning the yumitori-shiki, the closing ceremonial "bow dance".





Well I hope I didn't bore you all to death with that "little" explanation. I must admit I did have a bit of help from an informational pamphlet I got at the door.
Leave a comment if you have time, as I said before I love hearing from you guys.
じゃあまった