Arita Hina Matsuri

This past weekend I went to the small town of Arita in Saga-ken (Saga Prefecture) for a special English tour of the town in honor of Hina Matsuri (Princess Festival). Arita is best known for Arita-yaki, beautiful handpainted porcelain. During Hina Matsuri, which is on March 3rd, families who have had a baby girl born this past year buy china dolls of a prince and princess dressed in traditional Japanese kimono. I went to Jusco, the local grocery store/department store chain and found out that the cheapest you can buy these dolls for is about $400. If you want to get fancy you can buy a multiple-step set that includes the maids for the princess, musicians, etc. Then, every year on Hina Matsuri, the family takes out and cleans the china dolls and puts them on display. It's a really demanding process. I asked Naho about it and she has a 7-step set. She told me to ask okaa-san to take it out, because they haven't taken it out in years. When I asked okaa-san though, she didn't want to because it's all cleaned and store and takes a lot of effort to set up. She said maybe on Hina Matsuri I can see just the princess or something.

So anyway, Arita is famous for Arita-yaki. We spent the day touring Arita, which is a very small town. It's pretty inaka (countryside, out in the sticks...) but it was really peaceful and beautiful. I liked the town a lot. Maybe it's because I really enjoy arts and crafts and they have a deep craft tradition in the area.

So here's the day in pictures:















First, we went to a museum that had Arita-yaki teacups and plates. The museum had on display the special porcelain dolls for this year. Every year a different artisan company in the town makes the dolls. Here's who's on each step:

1) The princess and prince
2) The princess's maids
3) The court musicians
4) The old men who represent East and West and food offerings to them
5) The servants who clean up after everyone and more food offerings.















Here's a closeup of the prince, princess, and one of her maids. The detail is amazing on these pieces!















After the museum, we visited a shrine. The torii (entrance gate) to the shrine was made of beautiful blue and white Arita-yaki. Usually these are made of grey stone or orange-painted wood, so this was pretty special.
















A small porcelain prince and princess. I only took this picture to show how expensive this stuff is. These are about the size of a child's fist and cost 11,000 yen, or about $110.
















After visiting the porcelain shops, we went to special restaurant to eat food that is only made for Hina Matsuri.















I can't name everything that we ate, but going counterclockwise starting at the top left: a meatball in some kind of sauce, chirashi sushi (scattered sushi...there's rice at the bottom), the little box had shrimp inside, a clear clam soup, go-dofu (a special kind of tofu made in Arita), traditional, old-style Japanese sweets (one was a sugar candy and the other was a red-bean filled thing), and in the middle is kombu (kelp). It was all really really tasty. This is all special food, the Japanese people who were with us say they rarely get to eat things like this.















Enjoying our lunch!















Outside the restaurant, there was a wall that was made back in the 17th century of old kiln bricks. They decided to recycle the bricks to make things for the town, and I think it looks nice! This is my friend Pooja, who is from Virginia, doing her best Vanna White impression.















We walked by an omiyage shop (food souvenirs/regional specialties) and this old lady was giving out samples of kumquats. I wanted to take a picture of her but she said she was really embarassed, so we got her friends to join her.















Next, we went to watch a demonstration of Arita-yaki being thrown on the wheel. This guy made it look so easy, though I imagine after doing it for 30 years I'd be that good too, I hope.















This is another artisan glazing the bisque-fired pieces. It's amazing how thick that brush is, yet how thin the tip is. The lines she was drawing had such fine detail!















This artisan is drawing the same lines on all of those bowls. I asked him if he ever got tired of his job and he said yes. He said he was one of the youngest at the company though, so he has to do grunt work for a while.
















This is the man who owns the company we visited, Shingama-san. According to the locals, he's ichiban kakko ii (the coolest/most attractive guy) in Arita. Meh, I thought he was alright. He was really friendly though and showed us all the stuff that I just mentioned. He's the guy who painted all those dolls in the first photo.
















This is a picture of his workshop. I don't remember how to read the kanji on the smokestack but I do know that it translates out to "Blue Flower," which is the name of his brand.
















Some of the pieces available in Shingama-san's shop. These are little plates for kids. One of those little bowls costs about $50.
















Me sitting on the decorative art piece outside Shingama-san's workshop made of broken Arita-yaki dishes.















One last picture of another O Hina-sama (the princess) at a different museum.

It was a really fun and full, yet mellow, day. I love doing things like this, seeing traditional Japanese arts and crafts. I think I'd like to make it a point to go see more museums around Kumamoto, I forgot how happy doing this kind of thing makes me.

Funny Student Story #1

Yesterday in one of my ichinensei (1st grade) classes, we did a conversation warmup. The kids just learned how to introduce their families, for example, "This is my father. He is 39 years old. He likes golf."

One of the kids, Ryosuke, who would be considered one of my favorites if it was okay to play favorites, loves to try to be funny in English, which I think is a good indication that you're getting good in a language. This is how he introduced his family: "My father is 333 years old. His name is Yoda. He is green. He is short."















Found an old picture of him from when i first arrived in Japan. Here the kids are all decked out in their aprons, hats, and masks to serve school lunch to their classes. What a kid, haha.

It's Official...

As of last week, I am officially recontracted as ALT for a second year! I basically spent almost every moment up until the February 2nd deadline fretting about whether I was going to stay another year or not, and finally decided that it would be a good challenge. Some of my reasons include feeling like I'm not done with travelling around Japan, having fun learning the language, wanting continuity for the kids at the junior high school, and wanting to save up more money before I head home, among many many other reasons. I got my official contract from the Board of Education (BOE) last week. So here we go, yoroshiku onegaishimasu! (roughly translated out to "let's have a good relationship," said usually when you meet someone for the first time or are going to, well, start some sort of relationship). I'll be here until August 2008 now.

I'm pretty content with my decision, but for some reason this past week, I got slammed with a feeling that is difficult to describe. I don't know if homesickness is an accurate enough description, but it's been a feeling of listlessness, being unmotivated, wanting to stay at home alone in my apartment and not see anyone, and just sleep a lot. It could be the winter weather, culture shock finally setting in, or indeed homesickness, but it's a feeling I've never felt before, and a crappy one to feel at that. I'll admit that right up until this morning I've been feeling this way, and when I woke up I was dreading work and didn't want to get out of bed. But today ended up being a good day. I think maybe I've just been too busy lately and was feeling overwhelmed and just needed to slow down a bit.

Tonight after work I hung out with the homestay family as I usually do on Monday nights. Naho cooked tonkatsu (breaded fried pork cutlets) and a couple of random Japanese foods. After dinner we gathered around the kotatsu (heated table) and watched TV. I had received some pamphlet on folding origami in my JET Programme Beginners Japanese Course packet for this month and had brought it with me, along with some origami paper from the hyaku-en (100 yen) store. So while we watched TV, I learned how to fold paper cranes and toy balls. Then we ate decopon (a type of orange) that otou-san had grown (his livelihood is farming) until I decided it was time to head back to my apartment.















Typing this now, what I did tonight sounds pretty mundane, but I really needed it. It made me really happy to just relax with my homestay family. I guess I didn't realize how hard it is to live by myself in an apartment when all my life I've always had other people around: my family, roommates, etc. I guess I also realized that I don't always need to put pressure on myself to constantly be going on trips. The things I miss most about home are little things: going to Borders with my little sister after dinner and browsing, getting coffee with friends, having bonfires at the beach in Santa Cruz. Though the trips and adventures are always fun, I guess the same goes for here; it's the little things that make me happiest.

Watashi tachi wa Sapporo e ikimashita. (We went to Sapporo)

For the 3 day holiday weekend (sorry, can't tell you what the holiday was for, but I sure was glad to have it!), Tanzia, Alison, Melissa, Matt, and I went to Sapporo for Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) and had a blast. It was a perfect trip; we crammed in everything we wanted to do but took it at a good leisurely pace. Here's our trip in pictures*:

*Please excuse the horizontal orientation of the meant-to-be-vertical pictures. I can't figure out for the life of me how to rotate them here on Blogger, and according to the Help section many other people are having the same problem. I've already sent a missive off to the Blogger people, so hopefully they'll be able to kindly tell me how to fix this. Until then, enjoy anyway!















At Fukuoka Airport, bundled up and waiting excitedly for our flight to Sapporo.
















In Sapporo! Bright city lights + lots of snow = a happy Jo!















I think this is supposed to be the Imperial Palace carved out of ice. It was gorgeous all lit up like that, and those two guys singing weren't half bad.















The horde of snowmen at Satoland, another site of the Yuki Matsuri a little bit outside the Sapporo city centre. What an amazing sight. Using wooden paddles and stainless steel mixing bowls, kids and adults could make their own snowmen, decorate them with colored wooden pegs, and then attach a wish or message around their necks. As you can see, snowmen here in Japan are made of 2 balls, not 3. This is fascinating to some Japanese people, particularly my junior high school students and the teachers, who flipped out when I showed them a picture of an "American snowman." I personally think the two ball approach is cuter, ne?















Ramen Yokocho Alley, a narrow street of 16 ramen shops. How to choose???















Miso Ramen, a Hokkaido specialty. The other specialty includes corn, but I don't really dig corn in any incarnation besides on the cob anymore since I've been here in Japan. I've had corn on my pizza (pizza topped with corn, mayonnaise, and squid is something I see on menus regularly...), in my Japanese salad along with the seaweed and daikon, and in other things I don't care to remember. Stay out of my food, corn!
















The Chakri Maha Prasat Grand Palace in Thailand. Sponsored by the Thai and Japanese governments to celebrate their uninterrupted and harmonious relationship. Can you believe that thing is made out of ice and snow??
















It's a toss up as to which is my favorite, the Grand Palace or this, Hikone Castle. I love the Samurai Cat on the right.















On the Sunday of our long weekend, we took a chartered bus to Kiroro, a well-known ski resort outside of Sapporo. It was beautiful. The snow was perfect powder and we had a great time skiing and snowboarding. It did start snowing pretty hard halfway into our day though, which made for frozen faces and blinded eyes, but it was still amazing.
















This is how cold it was at Kiroro when it started snowing down.
















To reward ourselves from a tiring day of snow sports, we splurged on a 4,000 yen (about $40) kani (crab) tabehoudai (all you can eat). We had 90 minutes to eat as much king crab, snow crab, shrimp tempura, shrimp and crab sushi, and egg custard as we possibly could. This is me, Matt, and Mel ready to chow down with the provided implements: crab shears and picks. Get your game face on!















Taz and Son marveling at our first plate of crab legs. We chowed down without speaking for the first 20 minutes and then inevitably slowed down. Well, okay we took funny pictures like this one while we were eating, but other than that, we wanted to get our money's worth. I think I called it quits for real after about 60 minutes. I can't remember how many crab legs I ate, but MAN it was delicious. We definitely deserved it after a productive and industrious weekend. Otsukare sama deshita to us! (roughly translated out to "you look tired from having worked so hard," which is a phrase people use at work or when you want to say "good job" to someone. Really difficult to translate into English).

Sapporo was an excellent trip made with excellent company, but I'm glad to be back in (relatively) warm, southernly located Kyushu. I don't think I could ever handle living somewhere where it snows that much!

Hokkaido!

Bright and early tomorrow morning I'm leaving for the northernmost island of Hokkaido for the Sapporo Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival). We have a three day holiday weekend which happens to coincide with the matsuri, so I and four other ALTs are heading up there for what I hope will be a really fun trip full of fluffy snow and tasty seafood. Pictures and stories when I get back!

Until then, here's a website about the festival to satiate your curiosity:

Sapporo Snow Festival

Mata raishu! (See you next week!)

Just another night in Japan...

Okay, so maybe posting pictures of previous trips is coming along rather slowly...my apologies. But I definitely want to start putting stuff on this blog, so I'm just going to jump right into it. I'll add those things later.

I just got home from hanging out with my homestay family (who I lived with for my first two weeks here and try to hang out with every Monday). The stuff I did tonight is just so unique to being here that I have to talk about it.

Okay, first we went to eat at this famous sushi restaurant near my apartment called Sakai Sushi. It's really fancy shmancy, with a big zen garden in the back and aquariums with huge fish and squid in them ready for the catching. I let my homestay family order whatever and just went with it. So tonight, not only did I eat the typical normal sushi you would expect, like tuna, salmon, etc, but we had fresh squid sashimi. This thing came to the table on a bowl of shaved ice with flowers and a little plastic bonsai tree sticking out of it. They had caught the squid, cut off the sashimi from the "wings" of the squid, and then laid out the remaining LIVE (but dying...) squid under the sashimi. It was SO WEIRD. If you touched the squid it would wriggle and change colors. It freaked me out, but the sashimi was really good. When we were done with the sashimi they took the rest of the now dead squid back to the kitchen, fried it up and then served it to us again. CRAZY.

After dinner we went to visit grandma, who lives with my homestay family's aunt, uncle, and cousins. We just hung out and chatted (well they chatted and I interjected whenever I could say something) and watched a Japanese variety show that included a pretty young girl, a guy dressed in a pink rabbit suit, and three african guys dressed as firefighers. Didn't understand what was going on until they suddenly segued to a CHALLENGE! in which there was a huge pinball machine made out of wood using a bouncy ball as the pinball. The game was called Mix Juice, and how it worked was that they had 5 rounds, and there were holes in the pinball game in which the ball could drop. Each hole had a picture of a different fruit like strawberry or orange or whatever, but the gutter was goya, this bitter melon from Okinawa. For each of the 5 rounds, wherever the ball dropped, two pretty girls in some food service uniform would mix that ingredient into a blender to make a smoothie. One team ended up having a smoothie with 3 servings of goya and banana and orange, and the other had a decent normal smoothie with no goya. I didn't understand half of what was being said but it was still hilarious. The point of this is to highlight 1) how food and presentation centered Japanese culture seems to be, 2) how much Japanese people like anything that is labelled CHALLENGE!, and 3) how RANDOM tv shows here can be.

Here's some visual aids:















Naho (my homestay sister) and otou-san (dad) with their gigantic nama (live...like from the tap) beers. She asked me, "Is this American size?" and I told her, "actually, it's BIGGER than American size." It was a really big beer.















THE SQUID. So you can see the slices of white sashimi all neatly laid out, and beneath that is the live/in the process of dying squid. Pretty, but strange, and kind of scary.















The other food we had, the kind of stuff you usually think of when you think of sushi, though this stuff was high grade quality. MMM.















Me and okaa-san (mom) with the famous big Sakai Sushi tea cups. I don't know why this places like to have things extra large. Perhaps they're compensating for something, haha.