Abare

At the beginning of July, I was able to participate again in my town's annual Abare Matsuri, or Rage Festival for the second time.

This festival is one of my favorite parts of Japan, and certainly my favorite annual event in all of the country. The local townspeople, unsurprisingly, tend to also harbor a similar love for this town event. In particular, my Judo coach (who lives in the town where this festival is held) and his family are famously matsuri ningen (festival people) to their very core.

After counting down 364 days since the last Abare, I began my amazing weekend similarly to last year. After working a half day, I took off after lunch to go to my coach's house where I would spend the whole weekend. After arriving at their home, I sat down to receive blessed sake and have a drink with my coach and the neighbors who trickled in and out for a quick visit.

Finally the time came for everyone to dress up in traditional festival clothes and join the teams carrying around the heavy kiriko (huge lanterns that light the streets for the gods). This year I wore a tightly wrapped white cloth around my body with a neighborhood hapi coat over it. According to everyone, I looked really native! My get up made me even more excited to heave the kiriko and run around.

My coach and I

For the next 48 hours, the village of Ushitsu was alive with families and young people who all returned to their homes to partake in the festival. The streets rang with the sounds of laughter, stories, and the sharing of drinks and food with family, old and new friends, and even sudden acquaintances.

As tradition dictates, the main event of Friday night is when all forty-three kiriko teams line up at the wharf and take turns sprinting around three forty foot tall burning torches.

I was on the side next to the fire this year, so it was definitely exciting and memorable! But I did get a small burn on my arm and at some point that weekend a small burn on the side of my face. That one was so tiny that it was hardly noticeable and quickly healed! When I showed the little arm burn to my coach's wife she laughed and said that I had officially become one of the family!

Late on the second night of the festival, the select group of men (including my coach and his sons) that are on the mikoshi (portable shrine) teams prepared for the parading and destruction they would do in veneration of the god that night. I faithfully followed the team the rest of the night, watching their moves and feeling the energy from the determination and passion they poured into their difficult task.

After throwing the mikoshi around on the streets, hitting and dragging it, dunking it into two rivers and dragging it through a bonfire, the men finally reached the shrine where they offered up their work to the god, in hope of another year of prosperity for the town.

Although the mikoshi run had ended around one in the morning, the neighborhood teams had to persevere a few more hours until they carried their heavy lanterns back to their homes.

It is almost surreal to look around at the haggard faces of the diligent kiriko carriers at the end of the second day of kiriko carrying. Although they are exhausted and in pain, they never quit! On one hand I can see how people would wonder why they choose to be in so much pain, but on the other hand I completely get it! As my coach's wife has been saying for the past year I am a "Matsuri ningen," or an Ushitsu person in my heart. And it's true, the Ushitsu festivals certainly strike a chord in my adventurous heart.

Many times people told me to enjoy this year's Matsuri to the fullest since it will be my last, but it didn't feel like my last. I am without a doubt that someday I will participate in Abare again.

Be sure to check out my story of 2014 Abare Matsuri too!

結婚式！

先週お姉さんの結婚式のためにアメリカに行ってきました！

すぐアメリカに着いたら、料理したり、買い物したり、準備の手伝いで、とても忙しくなった。寝る時間もあんまりなかった！忙しかったけど本当に楽しかったです。

結婚式の２日間前、独身パーティーをやりました。姉ちゃんの希望どおり、女子７人で夜ご飯を食べに行って、セラミックアートを作りに行きました。

Friends since childhood!

結婚式の日、起きて、皆の化粧とか髪の毛をしました！

結婚式は教会でありました。宗教の式なので、いろいろ伝統的な習慣をしました。

”楽しんでね！”

"誓います！"

指輪の交換！

Just married! 結婚したぞー！

アメリカの結婚式のパーティーではいろいろな習慣があります。まずは、新しい夫婦の「ファーストダンス」があります。前に２人の特別好きな曲を決めて、パーティーで２人だけでダンスをしながら、皆は見ることになっています。

そして、姉とお父さんのダンスがあるし、新郎とお母さんのダンスもあります。

 

夫婦にびっくりさせるように、皆がパーティー中秘密に嫁と新郎の友達は夫婦の車を飾りつけします。いろいろ書いたり、物を掛けました。

ケーキを一緒に切って食べさせた！

お姉さんと旦那さんの幸せを見たら嬉しかったです！
　

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.