Tsukuba-Dooba-Doo

During the 2nd week in August, Katie and I walked down to the front office to buy extra towels.  Kiwa, a staff member and one of our Japanese friends, asked us "Will you be helping with the Summer Festival?  Nobody has signed up to help yet.  Can you make some food?"

We had seen posters for this in the elevators.  However, being that it was over a month away, we didn't give it much thought.  I was unprepared for the question so my social awkwardness started to bubble up inside of me...I knew that at any second I was going to transform into a red-faced, sweaty-palmed, heat-radiating moron.  In an effort to curb said awkwardness, I quickly responded "Uh...ya, of course!"  Kiwa was so excited to hear the good news, she turned around and yelled "Yata!" (I did it!) to her coworkers. Dang it.

Several weeks later I got an email from Kiwa concerning the festival with the subject line "Regarding a stool test"?!  Uhhh....wait, wait, wait.  Surely this is some sort of lost-in-translation moment, right?  They just want to sample the food people are making, right!?  Well...no such luck...We were instructed to place a sample of our excrement in the office mailbox.  They wanted to check to make sure everyone preparing/selling food didn't have any parasites, ect. that could possibly get in the food and make other people sick. I waited until the last possible moment before going through my own personal hell to obtain my stool sample because "it" couldn't touch any water.  Without giving away any details: I had to get creative, it got weird, and at that point we were VERY committed to helping out. 


We were committed to helping, but got lazy about making our own food.  We decided to simply work the 'Les Madeleines de Fred' food booth.  Those things sold like hot cakes and in no time we were out.  Being that we were free of our duties, we used our complementary food coupons to get some dinner. 


After the pros were done with their performance, the announcer asked the audience if anybody wanted to climb the ladder themselves.  I looked around and told Katie "Where is Matt?  I bet he would want to..."  Right then, the crowd parted like the Red Sea and Matt emerged with his hand raised.  I knew it!  The announcer was shocked that somebody took her up on her offer and almost had a heart attack when Matt was only half way up.  I'm sure he would have tried some sort of trick at the top, but with the announcer lady yelling "I hope you have health insurance!" he pretty much just climbed up and right back down. 

The Tsukuba MMC were very enthusiastic and got the kids to come out and dance with them.  I think it was only the 2nd time this group had performed so they were a little disorganized, but it looked like a lot of fun for the kids.  After their performance, researchers from the National Institute of Materials Science (NIMS) drummed on some taiko drums.

It was especially fun to watch because these people were just your typical foreign researchers with their PhD in Chemical Engineering, Physics, ect.  You know, your real 'Average Joe' in this neck of the woods.  From what I understand, a drumming group got some volunteer NIMS employees together and taught them a song in one evening.  An added bonus for us was that some of our friends were in the performance.

The festival finale' was a bon odori dance.  Many people joined in two huge circles and danced around for about 30 minutes.  You can see that Katie joined in as well (at least long enough for me to take a picture).

So, the festival turned out to be a blast.  Which is pretty much how this whole thing had to end up.  After all, I feel like I lost part of my soul when I gave them my stool sample.

-Seth

The week after I arrived in Japan, I noticed an eye catching photo on the cover of a magazine which had local events throughout the year.  In the photo was a huge, red, glowing Japanese warrior.  The text was in Japanese so I didn't know what it was, but I remember thinking "I have to go to that event, whenever it is."  During the last weekend of August, I got my chance.  


The Matsuri Tsukuba Festival is the biggest festival Tsukuba has to offer.  The big glowing floats are part of the Nebuta Parade, which is the main attraction. As the sun goes down, the center of town becomes inundated with food vendors, mini games (like at a carnival), and spectators.  As there is one major walkway through this area, you find yourself trying to wiggle your way past the food stands and through a thick slurry of people on your way to the parade area.


The atmosphere of the parade is very energetic.  You hear a bunch of people cheering, whistles blowing, bells-a-ringin', drummers drumming, and a partridge in a pear tree...my bad... I got distracted.  I must say that I've never put much thought into parades, but there were a couple things that made this parade much different from any I had been to in the US.  

Power to the People: Every float, portable shrine, ect. was pushed or held up by people.  There were no cars, motorcycles, scooters, or trucks moving these huge things around.  Just real. live. tired. people.  There was even a live band playing music on a ten foot high stage on wheels being pushed around.


Wait, didn't I just see that on the other side of the road!?:  Parades in the the US are unforgivable. A lack of punctuality may cost you a good view of the coolest part of the 30 minute event.  Japan's solution to this is simple: close off a 1km stretch of road, send the floats/people down one side, when they get to the end have 'em loop back around, repeat.  This transforms the parade into a 4 hour long marathon for those in the streets.  It's great for the spectators though!

Why are those man-skirts so short!?: Ok, ok...I know I should be mature about this and appreciate the cultural difference...but something about the length of their man-skirts (I know they aren't called that) makes the immature American in me giggle.

Our last day on Sado Island proved to be more fruitful than any of us expected.  As we had explored much of the southern part of the island, we decided to follow the coastline north to "see what happens."  It wasn't too long before we pursued the notion of driving to some breathtaking beaches on the northern tip of the island.  If we played our cards right, we could fit in a couple of fun pit stops, stop by the northern beach, and make it back to Ryotsu Port just in time to catch our jetfoil back to mainland Japan.



Much to our surprise, the other side of the hill lead to two natural, ocean-fed, crystal clear, sun-warmed pools!  One was twice as large as the other and both were easily 8-10 feet deep.  Immediately, my brain went into overdrive as I tried to rationalize reasons to not jump in.  My swim suit was in the car....I gazed up at Katie, Nancy, and Hal as they all agreed "well, you pretty much have to!"  I leapt out of my clothes until I was in my underwear.  I did one more quick check for sharks or jellyfish and then, as they say, 'the rest is history.'     


I changed after we got back to the car, then we hit the road again.  The following hour long stretch of pavement was the craziest, curviest, narrowest, blind-corner-est road I've ever driven.  When I proceeded through the things such as blind, single lane bridge crossings into blind hairpin curves there was a deafening silence.  Often times the only indicator of oncoming traffic were strategically placed, one foot diameter, convex mirrors.  Although it was hair raising at times, we made it safely to Ohno-game (turtle).

We had the option to hike to the top of Ohno-game, but we were still sore from Fuji-san.  It was almost lunch time so we ate at the Ohno-game lodge before we drove down the road to Futatsu-game (two turtles).




I cursed the fact that I didn't have goggles, but decided a swim was utterly necessary.  The surroundings were like something out of a movie.  It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life.  However, as we were on a tight schedule to catch out jetfoil, I couldn't swim for very long and we left.

We made our jetfoil in time and had an event-less trip back to Tsukuba.  We had made it!   

Getting from Kawaguchiko Lake to Sado Island required a cornucopia of vehicles: shuttle bus --> local train (x2) --> limited express train --> super express Shinkensen --> local bus --> Jetfoil boat --> and a rental car.  We were mostly excited to ride on the jetfoil!


A jetfoil is a boat which has jet engines and hydrofoils underneath that lift it above the water at certain speeds (same principals as airplanes).  The huge reduction in drag allows it to travel very fast for a passenger ferry.  Our ferry got up to about 45 mph, it reduced our travel time on the water from 2.5 hours to 1 hour, AND the ride was as smooth as a baby's bottom.
   
Upon our arrival on Sado Island, we rented a car and drove to our hotel.  We were greeted by an amazing hotel staff at Hotel Aikawa Yamaki and were shown our rooms.  Luckily, their staff let us get settled in without the hour long lecture we had received the previous night.  First on the agenda was a hotel-sponsored dinner.



With our bellies properly stuffed, we started our walk to a performing arts show down the street.  Just outside our hotel we could see a fantastic sunset across the Sea of Japan.


The show we were about to see was the official "kick off" show of the Earth Celebration, which just so happened to be going on that weekend.  It was to be performed on a Noh Theatre  and was a trifecta of traditional Japanese performing arts.


I must admit, I didn't do an inkling of research beforehand.  Sooooo....during the entire 90 minute show, I had no idea what was going on.  Listen to this audio of the first performance I recorded as you read the rest of the description of the show (below).  This should help set the mood. 


As far as I could tell, the first show told the tale of a samurai fighting a ghost.  This was accomplished through a hodgepodge of chanting, singing, drums, flutes, and a guy in a mask doing gestures on stage.  It was cool, but from my ignorant-non-Japanese speaking-ADD-American perspective, it was painfully long and bland.  The next performance was a wordplay based battle between two Japanese gods...?  The Japanese audience members seemed to really enjoy it, but it was monologue and dialogue heavy.  Naturally, I resorted to thumb twiddling for entertainment.  The final performance was the most entertaining and perplexing show of the night, Tsuru-nyobo.


This is what I thought happened based on what I saw:
An injured crane is rescued by a man...the crane flies around, plays with the man, is happy, then sad, then dies, then recovers, then dies, then lives, then plays, then dies, then comes back to life, then flies away forever...the man is sad.  

This is what it's really about:
Once upon a time, a young man rescued an injured crane.  As a gesture of its appreciation to him, the crane turned into a beautiful girl and then went to the home of the young man to become his wife. Having become wife of the young man, the crane told the young man he should never see it when It was at work. Then the crane went into a weaving shop. It wove clothes with the feathers pulled off its body. The clothes were sold at high prices. One day, the young man felt anxiety and peeped into the weaving shop. There, he saw a crane weaving clothes with its own feathers.  With its identity known to the young man, the crane flew away to join its friends.

Hey, at least I got the first part right, right!?  Actually, the interpretive dancer is very famous in Japan and is quite good at what he does.  After the show we walked back to the hotel scratching our heads as we tried to make sense of what just happened.  It wasn't too long before it was lights out.


The next day we took the car up the coast to do a glass bottom boat tour.  We were on the boat for at least 30 minutes and it wasn't until we exited that we noticed a Japanese man wearing a University of New Mexico shirt!  But wait, there's more...I just so happened to have thrown on my New Mexico State University shirt that morning.  As it turns out, he and his family lived in Albuquerque for a couple years AND now they live only a stones throw away from Tsukuba.  Truly crazy.

We still had some time to kill before heading down to the Earth Celebration so we got a little more familiar with the island's unique beauty.


Determined to get in the crystal clear water, we then found a beach and took an hour to swim around.


Finally, it was off to the Earth Celebration.  While there, we browsed around the shops and food vendors.  The main attraction, however, was the performance of KODO.



KODO is a drum group who play the traditional Japanese "taiko" drums.  In many ways, they're all about being BIG.  Big muscular dudes hitting big drums with big sticks.  You could feel the testosterone pumping in the air!  Don't feel bad for the ladies, though.  As if watching these gods-among-men perform their brutish ballet wasn't enough, KODO would occasionally slow it down with very talented female drummers.  All in all, I was blown away and highly recommend it.

We had done it. The four of us had scaled Mt. Fuji and lived to tell about it.  Now we had a date with those sexy, yet often elusive twins, Ms. Rest and Ms. Relaxation.  I had penciled them into my calendar at as-soon-as-possible 'o clock.  There was one problem though, we had gotten back from Mt. Fuji 5th station too early and our hotel at Kawaguchiko Lake wouldn't let us check in.  They did, however, allow us to drop off our luggage and change clothes.  I had a bad case of HBO (horrible body odor) since I hadn't changed since we left Tsukuba.

Feeling somewhat refreshed, we left the hotel in search of something that would kill a couple hours.  You would think that a town situated perfectly at the foot of one Japan's most popular tourist attractions would have tons of interesting things to do.  You would think, but you would be wrong.  Our options were essentially these:


Influenced by the appeal of a 'leisurely' cruise, we chose item 1).   


The boat ride was pretty nice, although it wasn't as long as we had hoped for at twice the price.  Afterward, we perused the shops and quickly discovered that each one was a carbon copy of the previous shop.  The four of us found a bench under some shade and lounged.  It got really interesting when an ambulance and fire truck came to the lake and took a lady away.  Our conclusion, following much debate, was that she was having a baby. 

Still one hour away from our expected check in time, we started walking toward a park, but noticed other people getting checked into our hotel!  I thought to myself 'Oh I hope they let us check in!' and they did.  Finally, we could get in our rooms, relax, and do things on our own time...or so we thought.

An assistant grabbed some of our bags and led us to our rooms.  Before we could say "chopsticks" our hostess popped out of nowhere, introduced herself, and started an unnecessarily long rundown of dinner, breakfast, how to wear our yukatas, ect, ect.  I really started to get worried when she started showing us maps of the fire exits.  'Pleeeeeeeeease let us just relax in our rooms!'  She even insisted on giving a yukata demo using Hal as a model.   


Finally, when I was about at the point of tears, our hostess left and we were able to take several hours to rest.  We immediately plopped our heads down and napped for a couple hours in our respective rooms until it was time for dinner.  Keep in mind, we really hadn't slept since we left Tsukuba on our way to climb Mt. Fuji.

Dinner was a full-on, no holds barred, Japanese dinner.  It was served in Hal and Nancy's room and we all dressed up in our yukatas. 


As you can see, each of us had about a dozen different menu items.  This proved to be a tricky circumstance on account of Katie's shellfish allergy.  Those Japanese people can sneak shrimp into anything (i.e. egg pudding, semi-transparent jell stuff, sauce).   

 
  


Here is a photo of our onsen on our balcony.  Onsens are traditional Japanese hot baths which are located all over Japan in many hotels and resorts.  Usually, you are asked to bathe first so you get in clean.  Did I mention that you are expected to be naked?  Obviously this wasn't an issue for our personal tub, but for westerners it can feel pretty awkward in the public ones (trust me).

After a relaxing soak, we hit the hay because we would be heading to Sado Island early the next morning!

-Seth