Festival in 三重!

This morning I learned a valuable lesson -- be careful of walking down steep hills in the rain while wearing dress shoes, particularly when walking over metal grates. No details, just a lesson learned.

Anyhow! Last weekend I went to Mie, a village about 20 miles away, for a welcome party and festival. It was my first time taking a bus on my own in Japan .. pretty uneventful. The upside is that I was the only person on it, and it was extremely air conditioned. The downside is that it made so many stops that a 20 mile trip took an hour and 15 minutes. Whoa! So I eventually made it to Mie, where I met a friend at the train station. We had a wonderful dinner at a local shokudo, which is sort of like a traditional Japanese restaurant. Lots of food -- blue cheese salad, miso soup, sashimi, vegetable tempura, roasted eggplant, and lastly, fried ice cream. Whoa! So we all left quite full and went to catch the parade.

Festivals are pretty common in Japan during the summer, I am not sure about the rest of the year. No one I asked really knew the occasion for this festival, but that is OK! It was pretty impressive to see. There were big wooden carts, about 15 feet long, 10 feet high, and maybe 8 feet wide, all on wheels. People were sitting inside of them playing taiko drums (big japanese drums played with thick wooden sticks), while people danced on top of the cart's roofs. Lastly, there were groups of people pushing the carts up and down the area. My favorite part of the evening! The drummers play their instruments really fast, the people on top jump and dance like crazy, and the runners run as fast as they can. When they get going really fast, somebody blows a whistle, and they all jump up and land almost parallel to the ground, feet skidding to a stop, in order to stop the float as quickly as they can. It was really intense! I wasn't unable to get a good picture because it was far away and pretty dark out. The highlight of the evening was when 3 carts were doing it simultaneously, sometimes nearly hitting each other. Really impressive to see, a lot of energy in the air. There was a Korean diplomat at the festival, so there was also some Korean music and dance. Also very beautiful, but I confess that had I not been told it was Korean, there's no way I could've distinguished. Went back and stayed at a friend's place after the parade, only 10 p.m. but quite sleepy.

The next morning a few of us met up and we drove to the top of a mountain that looks over Mie. Here is a picture! If you look sort of to the right off-center, you can see the Pacific ocean near the horizon. The city there is Beppu, which is famous for hot springs.


Quite beautiful. A sleepy car ride back to Oita, where I caught the train to Usuki. The parade was wonderful to see. It made me so happy to be here in Japan! In a few weeks we have the Fire Festival at the Stone Buddhas in Usuki. I like the idea of a fire festival .. sounds so pagan! I will be sure to post about that when the time comes. Until now .. it is 8 hour days in an office and Madonna "You Can Dance" at night, plus wildly colorful watercolor paintings. Wow!