Hadaka "Rainy & Cold" Matsuri

So today was the Hadaka Matsuri which takes place in Ohara. My buddy and I went and thought it would be fun to check out what I've been looking forward to since I found out about my placement....when the people carrying around the portable shrines go into the ocean. Apparently it's tradition for the people to carry around the portable shrines and go into the ocean as part of a "cleansing" process to the Gods in Japan.

So we went to the festival and walked up and down a street outside of my buddy's house to check out different food stands and things. It looked pretty ominous outside in the morning....black clouds hovering and covering the sky. I figured it would rain but didn't think it would be too bad. But....it turned out being typhoon like conditions...

It rained, and rained, and rained......AND RAINED!! And it still is! It was also extremely windy and actually COLD! I never thought I'd say that about Japan! It was a nice cool off, but it sucked that it was on a holiday and during the matsuri!

But definitely an interesting day...at the food vendors, I got lots of different food. I had a crepe, okonomiyaki, grilled chicken, takoyaki, ice cream, and a chocolate covered banana. Now with the chocolate covered banana, we could play "Rock, Paper, Scissors" to win more or get the minimum of 1 banana...which of course is paid for when I paid the 200 yen. I thought my strategy through real carefully, and thought about opening with paper. But I figured that paper is what a lot of people open with and I'm sure the vendor thought that too. So I thought about opening with paper but at the last minute decided to stick with "rock."

VICTORY!!! Haha, the vendor opened with scissors....and so I won an extra chocolate covered banana! Alright, it's the small things in life that make it interesting, but I was really happy when I won!

Alright, more posts to come...I have to get you all caught up with what else has been going on since school started!

Time to Catch Up - Nagano trip

So I've been less than successful with keeping up on posting about my time here.....Sorry! ごめんね！

But anyway, a lot has been going on and I feel like I've been pretty busy every second....so I guess I kind of have an excuse....

Well, I'll begin with the end of August to get you up to speed. My father came into town on his way back from Thailand, yay! My first visitor! He stayed with me for a couple days, then we went to Nagano together. We spent a nice long weekend in Nagano and was able to meet up with my cousins and my aunt who I haven't seen in awhile. One of my cousins I last saw probably 10 years ago, so it was nice to see her again and catch up! We stopped in Ueno to meet with them and ate some yakiniku (korean grilled meat) and it was delicious!

My dad were in a mad rush to get out of town so that we would not get into Nagano too late on Wednesday evening (Aug. 25th). I had a half day this day because it was still summer break and not much was going on. I brought my dad in to meet some of the school teachers and other peeps at the BOE. Then, we were off!

When we finally arrived in Nagano, it was rather late. We got in close to 8:30pm, but didn't get to my dad's place until after 9pm. When we get to Nagano, we always have to turn on the water since we don't keep the pipes on for obvious reasons while we're not there...(freeze in the winter). So we turned on the water and had some running water.....or so we thought! My father tried turning on the shower and no water was coming out. I tried flushing the toilet, and nothing happened. We tried turning on the water in all the sinks and still no luck! Yeah....so this sucked. We double checked outside to make sure that the pipelines were open and they were. My father called the man who helps take care of our place while we're gone and probably close to an hour went by. He was trying to explain to my dad that there's also another line at the end of the street where we needed to go to open another line.

Well we still weren't having much luck, so finally the man came himself! At this point, it was 10:30 or 11pm....my dad and I were dead tired, sweaty, and just wanted to take a shower and go to sleep! We finally got the water situation fixed and were able to at least get comfortable and go to sleep that night!

We spent the next few days in Nagano running some errands, sight-seeing, and visiting some relatives. It was fun and relaxing, but extremely hot! That seems to be the trend around here....

Although since the Hadaka Matsuri this past Thursday, it's been cool and rainy. Quite a turn of events in the weather!

Well, I feel a little more caught up now. There's still more things to post (my first days of school, my school's Undokai, and how the kids are) so keep coming back!