Well here is my post, now lets see if I can remember what we have been up to! There has been another festival this time in my town so we got more involved. The day before we helped make the rice straw rope that would be used in the tug of war. We were in the north team (Kita or nishi in hogen – which is east in regular Japanese). On the day of the festival we and the other north team members began to gather at about 6pm at out end of the main street. There was drinking, interrupted by a game of tag with some of my elementary school kids, before we made our move. The next step was partying around the town gathering people and drinking. First we stood in one spot, played music, danced, banged metal tins and blew a horn. This seemed to serve to gather other people. Once we had a good crowd we headed of to various houses where in return for dancing and banging drums we were forced to drink awamori by little old ladies. Sufficiently roused and inebriated we returned to the main street and the tug or war commenced. I am proud to say our side won both tugs! The next battle was the ‘standing on a board and fighting’ type. Two prechosen young men dress up and stand on a board held up by the other men of the village. They then try and knock the other teams fighters from their board. I think we lost this one. It gets a bit crazy during the fight as each team tries to get their board over the other teams. There are also burning torches being waved and ash and cinders raining down. Poor David’s feet got quite stamped on. After this was the sumo. We watched this a little bit before sneaking off as we all felt rather tired. The next few days were more relaxing and included a rather fun night out to new izekaiya on my island; it’s quite fancy for my island. David also got to jam with Teru. On the weekend we went to Okinawa Honto, on Saturday we went to the Motobu aquarium where we saw an amazing dolphin show and then stayed for the fireworks festival there. During the dolphin show (and porpoise) the performers (human) actually rode and ‘surfed’ the porpoises, breathtaking. I am still in to the dark as to the reason for the fireworks festival but I do know they have been doing tit for 30 years. The show we saw was the 30th anniversary and instead of the usual 5000 fireworks there was a whopping 10,000. Truly spectacular. The drive home was a slight drag and took almost 4 hours due to the congestion. The following day we went to see Kelly’s castle, I mean Kitanakaguskuku castle, and the associated haunted hotel. We spent the afternoon in the park. The weather improved immensely over the weekend and I took my sister and David snorkeling yesterday. We saw a particularly large shoal of fish wish was rather good to say the least. Oh goodness I almost forgot I also took my skin and blister and Daibido to school with me, to my English conversation class and to teach EVERY class at the shogakko (elementary school). I though that if I only taught some classes with them the others might be upset so I requested more classes and those I did get. It was great fun and despite initial skepticism I think they both thoroughly enjoyed it, the children of course loved it. My favorite moments were the 2nd years giving them a Kampai! (cheers) with their school milk cartons and a 1st year boy who was so amused by David he became almost hysterical and made himself choke with laughter. The Kindergarten kids were also very cute and had some little songs prepared. I even caught my sister singing ‘old MacDonald had a farm’ the other day, it’s my current song at the elementary school and we sang it with every class.
Enjoying a night at the new Izekaiyia.
The magnificant fireworks at Motobu.
One of the performers being launched high into the air by a porpoise, probably the best job in the world? The Motobu aquarium is the largest in the world btw! And among its many residents are several whale sharks, I do recommend it if you are in town.
Well here is my post, now lets see if I can remember what we have been up to! There has been another festival this time in my town so we got more involved. The day before we helped make the rice straw rope that would be used in the tug of war. We were in the north team (Kita or nishi in hogen – which is east in regular Japanese). On the day of the festival we and the other north team members began to gather at about 6pm at out end of the main street. There was drinking, interrupted by a game of tag with some of my elementary school kids, before we made our move. The next step was partying around the town gathering people and drinking. First we stood in one spot, played music, danced, banged metal tins and blew a horn. This seemed to serve to gather other people. Once we had a good crowd we headed of to various houses where in return for dancing and banging drums we were forced to drink awamori by little old ladies. Sufficiently roused and inebriated we returned to the main street and the tug or war commenced. I am proud to say our side won both tugs! The next battle was the ‘standing on a board and fighting’ type. Two prechosen young men dress up and stand on a board held up by the other men of the village. They then try and knock the other teams fighters from their board. I think we lost this one. It gets a bit crazy during the fight as each team tries to get their board over the other teams. There are also burning torches being waved and ash and cinders raining down. Poor David’s feet got quite stamped on. After this was the sumo. We watched this a little bit before sneaking off as we all felt rather tired. The next few days were more relaxing and included a rather fun night out to new izekaiya on my island; it’s quite fancy for my island. David also got to jam with Teru. On the weekend we went to Okinawa Honto, on Saturday we went to the Motobu aquarium where we saw an amazing dolphin show and then stayed for the fireworks festival there. During the dolphin show (and porpoise) the performers (human) actually rode and ‘surfed’ the porpoises, breathtaking. I am still in to the dark as to the reason for the fireworks festival but I do know they have been doing tit for 30 years. The show we saw was the 30th anniversary and instead of the usual 5000 fireworks there was a whopping 10,000. Truly spectacular. The drive home was a slight drag and took almost 4 hours due to the congestion. The following day we went to see Kelly’s castle, I mean Kitanakaguskuku castle, and the associated haunted hotel. We spent the afternoon in the park. The weather improved immensely over the weekend and I took my sister and David snorkeling yesterday. We saw a particularly large shoal of fish wish was rather good to say the least. Oh goodness I almost forgot I also took my skin and blister and Daibido to school with me, to my English conversation class and to teach EVERY class at the shogakko (elementary school). I though that if I only taught some classes with them the others might be upset so I requested more classes and those I did get. It was great fun and despite initial skepticism I think they both thoroughly enjoyed it, the children of course loved it. My favorite moments were the 2nd years giving them a Kampai! (cheers) with their school milk cartons and a 1st year boy who was so amused by David he became almost hysterical and made himself choke with laughter. The Kindergarten kids were also very cute and had some little songs prepared. I even caught my sister singing ‘old MacDonald had a farm’ the other day, it’s my current song at the elementary school and we sang it with every class.
