キリシマ祭！

In April, my taiko group was again requested to perform at the yearly Kirishima Festival at a little local shrine. Kirishima is the name of a red-flowering bush which is the flower of Noto cho.

This is my favorite taiko event that I have performed at so far. In fact I much prefer the festival performances, but surely that is because I love festivals so much. At any rate, other than the wind, it was a beautiful day and a joy to play! We were followed by a shamisen player accompanied by a man wearing a gorgeous turquoise kimono who sang a few folk songs. After that we snacked on yakitori, ohagi, and kibidango and partook in the bingo tournament held for all the guests. Like normal, our group headed to Hachiban Ramen (Hachiban is a Japanese fast food, ramen chain) for lunch before putting the drums away and calling it a day.

Our taiko drums set up at the entrance to the Kirishima-lined staircase leading up to the mountain top shrine

After going home, I took a walk to my favorite local shrine. It is another well known "kirishima spot," but I had not yet seen it in Spring when the kirishima are blooming. However, in Summer, Fall, and Winter I have always thought it was incredibly peaceful and gorgeous.

Imagine my surprise when I walked up the stairs and found the grounds of the temple covered in red blooms! The bushes that I had only seen in their green leaves before this had transformed the wooded area with dispersing red blossoms.

イチゴ狩り

Last month, May, was the peak of the strawberry season here in Japan!

Japanese strawberries are the best. They are at least three times as sweet as the average strawberries you can eat in America. Seriously, the first time I ate a freshly picked one last year, I felt like I was eating candy!

This year, a friend invited me to go strawberry picking at the local strawberry park in our town. Matsunami, one of the villages in Noto cho, has a "strawberry park," which consists of several strawberry gardens, each farmed by different people, located along one road. Every year in May and June the strawberry fields are open for "all you can eat strawberry" trips. You pay the fee, receive a small plastic cup to put your stems in, then walk into the net covered strawberry field to pick and eat strawberries for as long as you want!

So we went one Saturday morning and feasted on the tasty, ripe strawberries, freshly picked off the plants. In the span of about an hour I probably ate at least 50 strawberries! Which seems like a crazy number now....

ともばた祭

At the beginning of May one of the villages in my town has their very unique annual festival. In the village of Ogi, where the main industry is squid fishing, the yearly Spring festival is held on the sea itself!

Decorated boats circle around the bay, with flags and rainbow streamers trailing behind them in the wind, with the sound of taiko drums booming as they are played aboard the sailing boats.

On Saturday morning, I joined my junior high school students from Ogi to raise the flag on one of the boats and then ride around the bay! The students spend several weeks every year making one the huge flags to be featured on one of the festival boats. In the past, children made all of the flags representing each neighborhood, however in recent years since the population and number of children decreased so much that the everyone in the neighborhood, adults included, must help with making the flag.

Once we all arrived, we all gathered by one of the boats that had its long pole laying down, stretching across the road and into the yard across the street from the dock. There we slid the huge banner the students made for it onto the pole. Then we split into two groups and pulled on ropes angling out from the sides to raise it up, while several men of Ogi directed.

However, once we got it upright in the air we saw that the banner was snagged and not pulled all the way down. Since they could not loosen it by shaking the banner the men decided that pole needed to come back down. So the men carefully and slowly lowered this 75 foot tall, huge wooden pole. As they lowered it it swung back and forth a bit, dangerously swinging close to the two buildings on either side of it. In fact, a man inside the house came out onto his balcony to calmly watch as the pole narrowly missed his house by a few feet.

Once the banner was smoothed out, the students were called to reorganize to raise the flag-boat once more. Next the students were split into three groups and we boarded three different boats. The boys played taiko as we zoomed around the bay a few times, enjoying our ride in the beautifully bannered boats.