Freaky Friday

It was entirely my fault that the Niimi girls arrived late in Okayama City for Halloween Hijinks.

So when we got to Gorilla Bar, the party was already pumping and I had to struggle to get to the bar for some serious catch up drinking. Of course it was a nomihodai event, so I downed as many malibu pines and passoa oranges as I could before we had to leave at 12am. During this time, I marvelled at the costumes, which included pizza, doctors and nurses, rubiks cubes, sunflowers, haunted houses, ninja's, bees, boxers, cave women, rugby players, pirates, devils, French maids, high school girls and boys, cowboys, medusa, and my favorites Captain Canuck, Bert and Ernie, and Streetfighters Chung Li.

The most exciting event of ichijikai, the first stage, was going for a pee behind a parked car with pizza. The situation with about 15 people waiting in the loo was a little too rediculous to wait for.

Then it was on to nijikai, second stage, at Red Moon, where I arrived to find EVERYONE outside eating hotdogs and a lonely bar tender waiting for business. On the way there, we picked up two Japanese guys who had lived in Canada, Australia, and NZ for their "car business" and who liked to say "mate" after EVERY sentence, and an older Japanese man who proclaimed that this was his first time at Red Moon, before he drunkenly knocked over a table and smashed some glasses. As things were just getting going, somebody puked into Tara's bag full of money, and somebody else woke up and puked all over the floor, and I was sitting between the two somebodies. That cleared out the place pretty quickly, and it was only three strangers, and those of us staying up in the city left.

During this time, we were given tequila shots for entertaining the bar tender by taking on such challenges as dancing most like an animal (I won by incorporating both an elephant and a rabbit into the mix), dancing like Michael Jackson (I won this one by doing the crotch grab), and dancing on furniture. We were promised a whole pint of tequila if we could pull off dancing to Aphex Twin's Come to Daddy, which we did, but the bar tender was not forthcoming. We also discovered that we'd all made it to the Wall of Shame, but only one of us was doing something shameful. Somebody got their hair singed.

It came time to wake up the crashed out, and get out of there. I had to help a ninja home whose skirt kept coming off.

The next day, I wandered the early morning streets of Okayama, which I really enjoy doing. The early morning sun filters down through the web of wires, the air is crisp, and the streets are cleared of the wreckage of the night before. I found a bar called Soul Meets Reggae which I'll have to visit some time, and took a break at Raccos Burger - Coffee, Beer, and Royal Taste.

All in all a good weekend was had, although far too much money was spent. But it was worth it.

Accordianation

Yesterday saw me spending the day in Shingo watching the annual ongakkai, or musical get together.

I have never seen so many accordians in one place before in my life.

It was cuteness overload as the three local primary schools performed. The one below beformed Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Baa Baa Black Sheep.


This primary school performed a rousing rendition of the theme tune from the anime, Howl's Moving Castle.
Here's N JHS complete with snare and base drum, recorders, xylophones, those harmonica keyboard things, and of course, accordians. Among other things they performed a popular SMAP (boy band) tune.
Here's the first and second years of S JHS belting out a tune.
Here's the bad boys of third year looking extremely enthusiastic about being forced to sing in the choir.
After joining everyone for a singalong in Japanese, I walked to the station where I found this little guy.

Okayama Song?!$#%^%&

Thanks to Andrew for posting the You Tube link about Okayama City (The capital of Okayama Prefecture, where Niimi is), Momotaro (the legendary boy born out of a peach, who you can read about here and here) and his fighting sidekicks, the dog, the monkey, and the pheasant.

I can't embed the video in my blog sorry, the person who owns it has disabled that function, but you can see the video here.

Mt. Daisen, the poor mans Fuji

Mt Daisen is the second tallest mountain in Japan, standing at 1,729 metres tall. The shape of the mountain changes depending on the angle you look at it. It's quicker to climb than Fuji, taking about three hours up, and five hours down, but apparently the path is a lot steeper.

Around now is when Japanese families, tourist buses, sports car drivers, and bike gangs head up to national park to view the changing colours of the leaves, rev their engines, and pose, however what with the bizarre weather we've been having, the leaves haven't quite got round to changing yet.

Here are some very uninspired pictures of Mt Daisen. Daisen from far away.Daisen from one of the multitude of ski slopes.Daisen from the road leading up to Daisen Temple and Daisen Shrine, and the end of the descent path.Daisen from Daisen Bridge.Daisen from around the other side.

On the way up I witnessed the aftermath of what was almost an horrific accident that had only just happened. It appeared that a sports car traveling far too fast t-boned a family van spinning it across the road and rolling it. As I passed, a man was getting on his phone standing in the middle of the road while wobbly people were climbing out of the top of the van via the door. Debri was strewn all over the road, including what must have been the contents of the van. A female passenger sat immobile in the passenger seat of the sports car. I guess there are reasons why the speed limit is 50 km/hr, but this has got to be one of the only places where you can let your engines go.

Daisen Drift anyone?

I do like to be beside the seaside

This Saturday saw me spending a long time on public transport to get to Tomo no Ura, a small fishing town in Hiroshima Prefecture.

I went via Fukuyama, which has a nice looking castle rebuilt in 1966 after it was destroyed like so many other castles in the air raids of 1945. If it wasn't for the fact that they were charging a rediculous 500 yen for entry and I was with a bunch of other people, I may have considered going in for a look around. I can see how Tomo no Ura was once a very picturesque place, prompting the ambassador from Korea in 1711 to state that the view from Tomo Taichoro Guesthouse was "the greatest view in Asia". I doubt he'd say that now with all the concrete sea walls and horrendous hotels and apartment buildings marring the view.

We started our exploration by heading past Benten Island to Sensui Island, in the hopes that we might catch sight of a tanuki. The family of fluffy tanuki running through a field of grass as advertised on the website failed to materialise, however we did see a mujina, or badger - a very sick one that seemed close to expiration. We didn't explore the island in it's entirety, neither were we very quiet, so perhaps next time?

We did see some nature, and some Japanese kids fishing among other things.

Back on the mainland, a lucky few of us rented the crappiest bicycles in the history of Japanese tourism. Quite frankly, we would have been better off walking, it would have been faster.

We visited the old harbour, the Tomo Shichikyo-ochi Ruins, and the houmei-shu, or medicinal sake shops with their inviting scents, and many a temple and shrine.

Here's the old harbour and lighthouse.

Here's a homei-shu shop, complete with dinky collectors bottles.

Here's a dried goods store, selling dried sardines, sea slugs, and more.

This building is famous for being the place where seven court nobles dropped in whilst on the run from their persecutors in 1863.

The writing on the gravestones and stele at Myorenji Temple was amazing. The temple roof was also beautiful.

The Nunakuma Shrine.

Lunch was eaten at a temple on a cliff overlooking the sea. For dessert I had one maple syrup and pancake flavoured crisp. With two friendly cats nearby, the salty breeze, sound of the waves and gulls, and with tombi hawks wheeling in the skies, I almost felt that I was home again.

After regrouping, it was time for the bus and train back home, stopping off in Kurashiki for some dinner and drinks.

Let's Making Tofu!

This years local exchange at N JHS involved the old folk coming to school to teach us how to make tofu from scratch! Very interesting.

First we took some daizuki, or soy, beans that had been soaking in water for about 20 hours, and blended them up with the water till it was smooth.

Then we poured it into a pan over medium heat and stirred slowly for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Then, the frothy bean mix was poured through cheesecloth.

Nigari, a magnesium chloride coagulent produced from seawater is added to the remainder in the pan.

The frothy remainder in the cheesecloth is squeezed to remove excess water. The remainder is called okara, and this is used in other dishes such as salads.

After sitting for a short while, the thickened tofu is pressed into these wooden boxes which in the picture are being sterilised. Once the excess water is removed, the tofu sets into shape, and can be cut.

Unfortunately I missed the end of this process due to the inconvenience of inaka trains, but I hear it was very tasty.

Plaza Presents

Would somebody please tell me why a giant kumara (sweet potato, if you're not from NZ) shaped like a dog turd is on display in the local shopping centre?

I can't read the sign.

Wasshoi!

This weekend I was torn between attending Kibi-Chuo's Kamotaisai festival which I haven't seen before, or participating in Niimi's Daimyo Gyoretsu festival, which was cancelled last year due to heavy rain.

In preparation for the procession and festival, lanterns had been put up on shop awnings, and set on the ground along the path, and at night it looked beautiful.

I chose to stay in town and I'm glad that I did.

After a night of eating and drinking, I was invited with the other ALT's to Shomura Sensei's house for a traditional brunch before getting ready for the festival. We feasted on beer that came highly recommended, barazushi, which is a form of rice and mixed raw bits and pieces - I saw a few octopus suckers in there - , pickles, egg, and sabazushi that has been vinegared and marinated and is easily the best sushi I have ever tasted, among other things.

After that we headed up to Niimi's Hachimangu Shrine where the Daimyo procession begins. There were many people milling about in costume - samurai's, archers, priests, and mikoshi (portable shrine) carriers to name a few, and many members of the public and tourists. Some had come from Okayama City, some had come from out of Ken, and three had come from Victoria City in Canada - including the mayor, who we met.

At the shrine, nuns and small girls dressed in traditional costume were serving a traditional unrefined sake made at the temple called Doburoku. It was white and chunky and tasted fantastic. I went back for a few servings - it was free! Here's everyone hanging around outside the main hall of the shrine.Here's the men dressed as samurai taking part in a Shinto ceremony.Here's one of the girls serving doburoku sake.These are some of the smaller shrines to be carried by young women and older children.

While the two male ALT's were invited to carry one of the large shrines, the three female ALT's in attendance were invited to don traditional festival happi jackets and help out with the children's parade.

The procession starts in solemn silence. The purpose of the procession is to recreate actual processions that the local Daimyo lord had to undergo when called to Edo by the Emperor of the day. The trip to Edo was part of the plan to divide and conquer, keeping the local lords weak. Sometimes they would result in hostage situations as the Daimyo might have to return home and leave his family at court with the Emperor to keep him in line.

Here are the banner carriers wearing some uncomfortable looking straw zori sandals.Following the banner carriers and staff holders and samurai comes the Daimyo on a white horse.

For the recreation, they don't actually use an actual person to represent the Daimyo. I'm not sure why.

Here come some archers with rediculously long Japanese bows.

And here are some Shinto priests.

This is possibly a head priest and some nuns in training? Not sure...

During the procession, everyone on the street must kneel, as you can see the bystanders doing. If they did not kneel or did not get off the street, they ran the risk of being seriously injured, or loosing their head entirely. I'm told that the neat cones of sand with salt on top sitting alongside the road was for the purpose of soaking up the blood that was bound to be shed.

After the procession we were allowed to stand, and along came the mikoshi carriers, shouting wasshoi wasshoi! and shaking and tilting their precarious burdens.

Wasshoi! Wasshoi!

The children's waited patiently down a side street to join on the end of the parade.

It was a case of cuteness overload as some of these kids were actually kindergarten students.Along with the teachers and parents, we three girls helped carry these portable sake barrels, which were actually very heavy.

We walked through the city shaking our bells and shouting till we were hoarse. I forgot that numerous Japanese people would run along-side to get photos of the gaijin carrying a mikoshi in a parade.

Some of the smaller children had woven baskets decorated with paper flowers, and they would take these around the bystanders to collect money offerings and bundles of rice wrapped in paper.

Once we finished with the official parade, we met at Shusei Primary School for a juice break and photos, then one float headed up town to visit the houses of the neighbourhood, while our float headed downtown to visit the houses of the neighbourhood. More wasshoi wasshoi! and money and rice collecting from the local residents.

This is Kanae, who was just nine years old. During the festival, it was her job to fan the float carriers.

Finally we ended up at the schools community house and playground where we finally put down our floats and the children were given juice and a giant bag of sweets. The women went inside and counted the money and collected the rice. Shomura Sensei said that the rice would be taken back to the Hachimangu Shrine as an offering, and the money would go to the school, but first it would pay for all of the alcohol we were about to drink, and probably for more events besides. Altogether, they had raised over 100,000 yen!

While the children had their juice party, I had the opportunity for the first time ever to interact with them.

A lot of them were not scared of us, and not scared to try speaking English either, which surprised me considering English is not compulsory yet in primary schools in Niimi, and because my experience with junior high school kids is that they keep quiet and avoid eye contact.

After sitting outside in the afternoon sun drinking beer and various sake's, and eating squid in numerous forms, more sabazushi, yakisoba, oden, cheese, and other things with the men, we had time for a short game of "Darumasan" which is a lot like "statues".

By the end of the day I was touched to hear the children entreating us to come to school again and see them. They'd even learnt our names! And Shomura's little daughter said to me in Japanese "I want you to become my big sister". I'd love to work at primary schools!

For more information on Daimyo Gyoretsu, read

My Little Darlings

Teachers often give students nicknames. Sometimes this is based on special characteristics of the student. Sometimes it's a westernisation of a Japanese name. Sometimes it's just in order to easily remember and identify each student when you have five Okamoto's in class.

I have a student I call "Miser" because he is not willing to spend money on anything, and his excuse for not writing anything in his textbook is because he is saving his pencil lead for something more worthwhile. Actually the students like it. In Japanese it sounds kind of cool - "Maizaa"

I used to have a student I called "Tom Cruise" because his name is Tomo, and he likes to jump on chairs.

Today I found out that I've earned a nickname myself, thanks to the lovely Keiji - trouble maker number one in one of my second grade classes.

Near the end of class one day, instead of calling me over with the usual "Hey Bikkii!" he said "Hey Bagii!". I responded and everyone laughed. I asked what "Bagii" was but everyone just laughed some more.

Eventually I found out he is a character in a very popular manga called One Piece. I kinda figured it wouldn't be a flattering name, and I was right. "Buggy will often feign intelligence, only to have his true incompotence revealed". His one saving grace is that he has numerous "attacks" that all involve the removal of body parts!

Any resemblance?

Just wait till Keiji sees my "Bara Bara Senbei" attack!

Saijo and beyond

I went to Saijo in Hiroshima Ken for the annual sake festival. I couldn't believe that even though I'd gotten up at 5 am and sat through over three hours of train travel, it still seemed that the whole of Japan had arrived before I did.

The streets were crowded as I wandered down "Sakagura Dori" or "Sake Storehouse Street" looking at various street stalls and sake breweries.

On entering a brewery you are able to see how sake is made, take a look at some of the equipment used, and finally, taste free samples and buy bottles of those you like. I must have gone into at least six of these before I met up with some friends and headed down the main road to look for the sake nomihodai.

At any matsuri, or festival in Japan, you are bound to find food on a stick, goldfish being scooped up by children, and tai yaki and taco yaki.
The sake nomihodai was rediculously crowded. For a 1,500 yen ticket, you get to sit in a park full of people and garbage and queue for little sake cups of sake from all over the country - about 900 kinds - and if you leave, you can't go back in.After a few hours of that, it was time to contemplate the wonder of sake at the house of the sake god at Matsubi Shrine.Before an evening of bar hopping in Hiroshima City, I spent some time in the Peace Park listening to musicians trying to outdo each other under the bridge.Bizarrely, I ended up back in the Peace Park at 2 am listening to Shakespearean argument over a jacket.The next day was spent at Hiroshima Castle. Because I'd been there twice before, and because I wasn't feeling the best I spent the majority of the morning on one park bench or another.Finally I visited the Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art, just to view the free outdoor exhibits.Useful fact: In Japan, the word sake refers to any alcoholic beverage. The word nihonshu is used to mean what foreigners call Japanese sake, or rice wine.

Don't Go There

I've visited various hospitals during my stay here. In Japan, there is no such thing as a GP. And in such a rural area, there isn't a hospital big enough to hold every department. There is one hospital specialising in orthopedics, another for gynecology, obstetrics, and anything else related to the female body, one for pediatrics, internal medicine, external medicine........The ENT clinic is only open on Thursday mornings.

When visiting a Japanese hospital, be prepared to leave your dignity at the door along with your shoes.

After registering at reception which department you want to see and why, you must then go and wait in the corridor outside the department. In Niimi, this involves being stared at by bent over octogenarians slowly expiring in front of you whilst waiting their turn. It sometimes involves missing your turn in the queue because you're foreign. In one case, it involved seeing an extremely old woman, perhaps 100 years old, being wheeled past, as she moaned and groaned in her bed, and then seeing her being wheeled past again in the opposite direction, looking quite dead.

My most recent experience involved one of the nurses from internal medicine coming out to talk to me rather than just give me the medical questionnaire which allows the doctor to make his diagnosis without actually consulting you, as we are used to in western medicine. In a big loud voice she said "What'd wrong? Do you have a cold?". Unfortunately I didn't. - When you have a cold in Japan, they give you ten kinds of prescription medicine and make you sit holding a nebuliser for hours -. I had a bad case of food poisoning or gastroenteritis. In Japan, another phenomenon is that often illnesses are not clearly diagnosed -

- side story - when I had kidney stones, they gave me pain killers and told me to go home. The pain killers were of course too weak, so they gave me two shots and told me to go home. Pain still persisted, so I told the doctor I'd actually like to know what the problem is just in case I might be dying. In Japan, the symptoms are treated, not the cause. He rolled his eyes and ordered blood tests, urine tests, an xray (pretty standard with any injury that passes through a hospital, even if it's clear nothing is broken), an ultrasound, and a CAT scan. Nearly five hours later I was told "You might have kidney stones, but we're not sure. You'll just have to put up with the pain." -

- The general term which encapsulates the symptoms I was suffering is otogeri, which literally means vomiting and diarrhea. I didn't really want to say this when there was a waiting room full of people, all eyes on me. I said it, and glanced around the room to catch a few smirks. The nurse then proceeded to ask me how often I'd "defecated". I told her "wakarimasen". Unfortunately this could be understood as either "I don't know" or "I don't understand". She thought the latter, so asked "relieved yourself", "gone to the toilet", and finally "shat" before I managed to spit out "I meant, I haven't been counting. Many times." Titters all around. The next question which is also pretty standard on these questionnaires is "When was your last period?". This time I answered "kankei nai" or "that has nothing to do with it", which may have come off sounding a little rude, but COME ON!! Finally I was given a thermometer to stick under my arm. In Japan, if you don't have a temperature, then you are not considered to be sick. The resulting temperature was shouted across the room to another nurse sitting behind the hole in the wall that serves as the reception area for the department. She then disappeared.

While I was considering whether or not she would come back out with a cup for me to pee in - yes, literally pee in a paper cup. Sometimes, if there's nowhere near the bathroom to put the cup, you have to carry it back to the department that you're trying to get into - I took a moment to look around at the filth in the cracks of the floor and the ancient stains on the walls. I've had blood tests in rooms where there are bloodstains on the cardboard box they put used needles in, and had saline drips whilst lying on a bed with dirty sheets.

Eventually my name was called and I was allowed to wait in the inner hallway while those that had gone before me were being examined behind drawn curtains. The situation looked a lot like this picture I pulled off the net.Then it was my turn, and I greeted the doctor and sat and waited for his diagnosis. Surprisingly, he asked to examine me. There is always a nurse standing by in the examining room, and she jumped to attention and tried to pull my top up. The doctor indicated he wanted to listen to my heartbeat. In Japan, doctors prefer you to lift your entire top up, but instead I pulled down my top and said "Is this ok?". The nurse looked on in consternation as I'd made her redundant. I then had to lie on the bed in order to have my blood pressure taken. After that, the doctor indicated he wanted to check my stomach, so I loosened my belt and pulled my jeans down as far as need be. The nurse, angry with having her duties done for her, hung on to the top of my pants and pulled like she was fighting against them, feet set apart. Examination over, the doctor said "I'll give you some medicine. Take it every day" and I was dismissed.

The final step in the process is to sit and wait for your prescription to be doled out, and then sit and wait to pay your overinflated bill. The whole thing will take at least one hour, unless you need tests.

Just don't go there.

Amorous Amphibians

I found this guy waiting for me on the steps outside my door. He'd climbed three stories, for what, I don't know. I took him across the road and put him in the rice field behind the convenience store.

I want to ride my bicycle / I want to drink until I can't stand up

And this weekend, I did.

It was time to do the Kibi Bike Trail again, and this time I took 19 other ready and willing foreigners keen for a bit of socialisation with minimum energy expenditure along with me.

As always the views on offer were gorgeous, including rice fields, vegetable patches, keyhole burial mounds, mountains in the distance, and temples and shrines. Unfortunately the jewel in the crown of the ride, Kibitsu Shrine, was still under wraps and renovations aren't due to be completed for another two years!

My camera died on me, so I took a couple of pictures at Kibitsu Shrine with my 1 yen mobile phone. A lion (?) guarding the side entrance to The Long Corridor of the shrine.

A picturesque water wheel next to the fortune telling pavilion and the archery range.

The prayers and wishes of worshipers hanging at the shrine.

Daruma (Dharma) dolls left at the shrine (I think as an offering of thankfulness, as both eyes are coloured in which is a sign that prayers have been answered).

Marveling at the size of the koi in the pond and trying to feed them jandals.

A place to cleanse your body and purify your soul before prayer.

After a minor mishap where I lost the final station (in the exact same place I lost it last time), we made the train back to Okayama in good time, and headed to KoTenGu, a fantastic izakaiya in the city.

The night didn't end there. Some preferred icecream, and some preferred Aussie Bar. It was generally agreed that almost every foreigner who was in Okayama City that night would be at Red Moon at 9 pm for the kick off of the all you can drink bonanza.

A fantastic phenomenon of Japanese society is the nomihodai, or all you can drink, and to a lesser extent tabehodai, or all you can eat, event. These events usually take place at beer gardens located on top of department stores, or at drinking parties held by companies. But when you get one that's held in a bar frequented by foreigners, and you're offering a 3,000 yen all you can drink beer, wine, spirits, and cocktails menu for four hours, with the option of extending it for another hour and a half including shots, you know it's going to be massive and out of control.

And it was.

I saw people I haven't seen in a year, laughed uproariously, danced, had details put in my phone from people I don't even know, and generally had the best night ever.

A group of us went outside to get some kombini food, then, I have no idea why, but we walked into Ultra Blue and asked for Kim Long - as though everybody in the bar would know who we were talking about!! And then we went to Desperados, which was the emptiest I've ever seen it and full of yankee snoop diddy G's and skanks wearing glow bracelets and dancing to some really atrocious music. After a quick spin on the dance floor, I was told "Vickers, you've been jizzed on - that didn't take long." (The next day I realised I'd somehow picked up somebody's manky chewing gum and it was all over everything), so after a quick change we went back to Red Moon to find that every single JET there had disappeared.

But we continued on with some hard core Japanese women. One of them passed out sitting at the bar while I was talking to her and thumped her head bad. Another fell down a single step three times.

The manager went home. It was getting light outside. There were enough people there to keep the place open. The bar tender, for some inexplicable reason, had taken off his shirt. I found myself lying on the bar top with my head under the Heineken tap. By about 5am I was on to my lasto lasto drink. I stood at the bar and said "What can I get for 500 yen?", and Mr Man said "This will really f**k you up" and proceeded to poor a glass full of alcohol with no mixer. While I waited, some guy with a huge blow up Corona bottle kept bunting my arse. I couldn't drink the drink - I could smell gin in it, and as some of you know, I haven't been able to touch the stuff since the age of 16. I fell asleep.

The rest, I've mostly heard about. Yes, I made a spectacle of myself, but no, it's not me that's going to be put on the Red Moon Wall of Shame!

How did I get this humungous bruise on my arse? And the burn on my hand.....