nanohana volunteer bus

So last weekend I took part of a volunteer bus to go help with recovery in Tohoku from the Great East Japan Earthquake (and tsunami)! It was a very good experience, and I may very well go again sometime (though maybe not until it gets a little warmer).

I decided to participate because I wanted to go somewhere and do something over Christmas weekend, and as I'd been thinking about volunteering before, it seemed like a perfect chance! I went on a trip organized by Nanohana Bus Company, which I had found out about via work and which I chose because I could get on at Chiba Station instead of Tokyo, which was very convenient. The fee to participate was also fairly low (10000 yen), which included transportation to and from the site, lunch, and even admission into a hot spring!

So after purchasing lots of necessary items (steel-lined rubber boots, work gloves, masks, goggles, bright blue jumpsuit, etc), I headed to Chiba Station on Saturday night, ready to spend the night on the bus before arriving in Miyagi Prefecture in the morning. The bus stopped at a few places including Chiba and Tokyo, slowly filling up with volunteers, most of whom seemed to be participating on their own like me. Because of a last-minute cancellation, I was lucky enough to have the two-seat row to myself, which made it much easier to get comfortable and sleep (though I can really sleep anywhere, haha).

Around 5:30am we stopped at a rest station to have breakfast and get changed (we did stop a couple of times during the night as well), before getting to our final destination around 8! We didn't find out exactly where we were going until shortly before we got there: a town called Minamisanriku (南三陸町), on the coast in Miyagi Prefecture, which suffered a lot of damage in the tsunami last year. According to our guide, the government has officially declared Minamisanriku as recovered, but there is still a long way to go before things can be considered normal again. On our way to our volunteer site, we could see huge piles of rocks and things still scattered about.

When we got to the site, they split us into two groups and assigned each one to a different area. The day's task: uprooting all the grass and plants that had grown over the land and then going through the soil to remove all the glass, trash, rocks, and other random objects that were buried there. We each had a little sickle (which I've never used before), and after a brief explanation, we set right to work! It wasn't easy - they told us to try and totally uproot things when possible and a lot of the plants were settled in pretty tight (I had to admire their tenacity! ), and it was tough to be constantly squatting or bending toward the ground, but the weather was bright and clear and warmer than any of us had expected (I shed several layers as the day went on), and it actually felt really nice to be outside doing some physical labor instead of sitting at a desk all day for a change!

It was also pretty interesting to see what came out of the ground, though thinking about where they had come from and how they had gotten there was also a little sobering at times. There was a lot of broken glass and concrete/cement/rocks, as well as shells, trash, plastic, and pottery fragments. A couple of interesting things I found included an electric toothbrush head and a little Donald Duck charm bracelet, and I even saw a tin lunch box somewhere.

After working for a few hours (with plenty of breaks in between), we had an hour for lunch, which was a buffet of things like yakisoba, fried rice, soup, spaghetti, etc. I had a big appetite after working all morning, and it all tasted delicious! There was a fire going outside and they were even grilling oysters (though I'm not a big fan so I didn't try any).

After lunch we went back to work until about 4pm, when we wrapped up for the day, having cleared almost all of the area they gave us! After we got back on the bus, our guide explained that the work we did, while helpful in its own right, was just as much to help encourage the spirits of the people who lived there to not give up and to keep doing their best to rebuild, which was a really interesting thought. As the earthquake/tsunami happened over a year and a half ago now, the number of volunteers and visitors to the area has definitely decreased, but apparently still having volunteers come out has been motivating to the locals (and hopefully will continue to be!).

Next we drove to the shopping street to have dinner and buy souvenirs, which was pretty cool even though they were all in makeshift buildings. I had ramen for dinner with another lady who was on my volunteer bus, and enjoyed wandering around the little shops before we left for our next destination, the hot spring!

It was a hot spring inside a hotel, and it started to snow as we went inside. The onsen (hot spring) was pretty nice, with several different baths and even a sauna. My favorite part, though, was the outdoor onsen in the midst of heavy snow! It felt pretty amazing to soak after a long day's work and enjoy the beautiful view of the snow falling at the same time. I also got to talk with a few more of the ladies who had volunteered with me, which was cool.

After I left the bath (I can't stay in hot water for too long), there was still some time, so I bought some ice cream at the hotel gift shop and read some manga from the little library they had there (which I thought was pretty cool) while enjoying a live band that was playing Christmas music in the lobby. And then it was back onto the bus for the night ride back to Chiba! I definitely had no problem falling asleep after that, and managed to sleep pretty well until I got back just in time for the first bus back to my apartment.

All in all, it was a really great experience, though short, and like I said, I'm definitely considering doing it again. The earthquake and tsunami may have been over 18 months ago, but there is still so much left to be done, and I hope that people don't forget about it anytime soon.

chiba urban monorail wine train!

So yesterday I got to ride on the Chiba Urban Monorail's 'Wine Train', and it was amazing! Basically, it was a chance to ride on the monorail while enjoying wine and a bento dinner, along with the beautiful night scenery of Chiba!

Mono-chan!

I went with a few of my co-workers, and we met up at Chiba Minato Station, which is the beginning (or the end, depending on how you look at it!) of the monorail. The route for the event was to go all the way down one line, to Kenchomae Station, going back to Chiba Minato, then going down the other line to almost the end (though I don't remember which station exactly, oops) before ending at Chiba Station. The whole thing took an hour and a half, which after we got off I think we all agreed went by super fast!

Super classy.

When we got ready to board, there was a cute sign at the front of the car with the monorail mascot, Mono-chan, in a Christmas hat and holding a wine glass. When we stepped into the car, though, was the exciting part. Seeing the monorail car, which I've ridden many times before, full of tables with wine and bento boxes and decorated with little bunches of grapes (even all the ads had been changed to ones of wine!), was really really cool!

Delicious!

And then we were off! It was pretty amusing to see the regular monorail passengers at all the stations we passed through, who were clearly very confused (and probably jealous) to see us eating and drinking inside (can't blame them). There was both red and white wine (apparently enough for each person to have 2 bottles!), a delicious bento box, and a running commentary by our emcee, Santa. The monorail passed by the Christmas illumination in Chuo Park on its first round to Kenchomae Station, and then on the way back actually stopped briefly so we could get a good view. They even turned off all the lights and switched on Christmas lights around the windows to make our own illumination inside the cars! There was also a prize drawing, for things like a monorail charm (my co-worker won one!), fancy wine, and a stuffed Mono-chan, and a short explanation about wine from representatives of Mercian, the company that provided the wine. 

Illumination in Chuo Park!

All in all, it was a fantastic event, and if I had the chance I would definitely do it again! I am a huge fan of the monorail, which is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's longest suspended monorail - I even looked it up in the library to check once (and it was there!) - so I really enjoyed getting to experience it in a new way. We even got to take home our wine glasses and any remaining wine, plus a free 2013 monorail calendar. Well worth the 4000-yen ticket, I think! Apparently they do a similar event with beer in the summer (which is more appealing than wine to me, haha), so maybe I'll be writing about it in a few months. Let's hope! :D

Our own illumination!

a visit from quezon city

Last week some officials from our sister city in the Philippines, Quezon City, came to Chiba in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of our sister-city relationship, and I got to accompany them to a bunch of cool places in the city, which I probably wouldn't have gotten the chance to see otherwise!

They were here in Chiba for a total of three days, though the first day was relatively uneventful. We did make a really brief stop at Narita-san Shinshoji, which is one of the most popular temples in Japan, but because it was starting to get dark and also raining really hard, we really just took a few pictures at the entrance. I would really love to go back and actually take a look around sometime - one of my friends was there the same day and she said it was one of the most beautiful places she'd seen.

The next day the delegation had a courtesy visit with the mayor and a courtesy visit/luncheon with the chairman of the Chiba City Assembly and some other assembly members, which I helped interpret for (sort of). After that we went on a study tour of some waste treatment facilities (which I left entirely up to the pro interpreter, haha), which was actually pretty cool! We got to see things like trucks dumping garbage, cranes moving it around, garbage being pressed into blocks, etc. Part of the facilities was a system that created biogas (mostly methane, I think?) from burning garbage, which is then used by a nearby steel factory for energy. Pretty cool, I think, especially considering this is the kind of thing I would probably never see otherwise!

Next we made an unplanned stop at the Fukuda Denshi Arena, aka the soccer stadium that is home to our soccer team, JEF United Chiba. Thanks to the assembly member who was with us, we got to go on a quick tour around and saw things like the control room, locker rooms, the drug testing room (complete with bathrooms with glass doors!), and the VIP room. We also got to go on the field, which was pretty cool. I think it'd be super cool to play frisbee sometime there, though that will probably never happen (though we do practice next door once a month)!

The next morning our first stop was the Chiba City Museum of Art, to see the exhibit I went to with my family a few weeks ago. After that we walked over and got on the monorail, so our guests could experience it. We managed to transfer onto the Urban Flier (the new monorail car), which has a glass bottom in the conductor seat and won a Good Design Award this year!

After that we went to the World Business Garden in Makuhari for lunch. We went all the way to the top of the building (to the 35th floor!), where there was a really great view of Tokyo Bay and Makuhari. Next was a tour of Makuhari Messe, which I've been to before but was still pretty interesting. I learned that the main 8 exhibition halls were built to look like the mountains of Chiba Prefecture, while the newer 3 were designed to look like waves from Chiba's coast, which I'd never realized before. When we walked around, there was a huge line of people stretching across the 8 exhibition halls (which I learned span 530m), who were there for Best Artist 2012, a concert that was broadcast live at 7pm tonight! I was just watching it on TV, and knowing that everybody I saw was actually in Makuhari Messe at that moment was pretty cool.

All in all, it was a super busy three days, but I had a lot of fun being with the delegation and visiting the various places with them. I'm not sure when another delegation will be coming to visit or if I'll be here for it, but I hope that I am! :D

chiba factory scenery night cruise

This Saturday I got to go on an evening cruise of the nighttime factory scenery in Chiba Port! This is actually only the second time that this has happened here (I believe the last one was in February), but I've heard this sort of cruise is actually getting pretty popular around the country, and depending on interest it could become a more regular thing here in Chiba, too!

I met up with one of my coworkers and a friend at the station before walking over to the port together. After checking in we waited a little bit before getting on the boat, which was very sleek and fancy-looking, with cool blue lights along the sides. The cruise included a free drink, which was a choice between what I think was a sort of fruit cocktail (tasty) or juice. After getting our drinks, we decided to go up to the top of the boat for a better view, even though I'm sure the downstairs was much warmer, haha.

After a little bit, we were off! I was surprised to discover that there was actually a guide on the cruise to explain what we were looking at and give us some background. It was only in Japanese and I didn't understand all of it, especially when he was explaining more about the factories, but I was glad that he was there to explain things to us.

As we were heading out, we got a really nice view of Port Tower, which is currently doing a nighttime Christmas-themed illumination starting at 5 every day. It's basically a Christmas tree shape and lots of colorful twinkling lights,  which is actually quite pretty. From the boat we could see the whole Christmas tree design, which for whatever reason you can't see from shore, so that was pretty awesome.

As the cruise went on, we heard explanations of what factories we were passing by (what they were, what they did, etc), and we also got to see things like the Makuhari New City District in Chiba (where Makuhari Messe is) and Tokyo Tower and the Tokyo Sky Tree across Tokyo Bay, which was really cool.

We slowed down and got close to factories at two points, one at JFE Steel and another whose name I didn't catch (oops). There was actually something surprisingly pretty about all the lights from the factories, which you don't really associate with factories, and it was really cool to be able to see them up (relatively) close. They even brought the boat closer once upon somebody's request and told us what settings to use on our cameras for the best pictures, which I thought was really nice of them.

Near the end they also let us go through the captain's cabin at the front, where we saw all the navigation stuff, which I thought was really cool. I also noticed that a lot of the switches were labeled in English instead of Japanese, which I found interesting.

All in all, I think it was super interesting and I'm glad I got the chance to go! It got pretty chilly on the boat with the wind blowing the whole time, but I was relatively prepared and also I love boats, so I enjoyed it. :D Someday I'll have to go on one of the regular sightseeing cruises they offer in Chiba Port, because I'm sure those are also awesome.

family vacation, part two

So after a day of relaxing in Chiba, the family adventures continued! On Thursday morning we got up bright and early (like, really early) to catch the shinkansen to Nagoya, on our way to Takayama. In Nagoya we met up with my host mom (from when I studied abroad in Nagoya) and had a little breakfast at a cafe before wandering around and shopping a little before our train. It was really great to see my host mom again (it's been two years) and introduce her to my family, since I don't know if they'll all be in the same place at once again!

After that we got on the train to Takayama! We rode the 'Wide View Hida', which is so named because it has really big windows, which were great - as we got closer to the mountains we could see all the autumn colors of the trees (which we didn't get to see as much of in Kyoto) and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. When we got there it was late afternoon, so we went to our ryokan (who picked us up from the station even though we forgot to ask them in advance!) and dropped our stuff off before getting bus tickets for the next few days and wandering around town. As it was getting dark and most things seemed to be closing (I guess it was a weekday after all), we decided to get dinner at a place called Kyouya that was in a restaurant guide. It was a very Japanese-style place and we got to try the famous Hida beef, cooked with miso and served on a magnolia leaf and a little stove! (It was delicious.) After dinner we went back to the ryokan and took baths, which felt awesome. They even had a bath outdoors, which was perfect with the cool autumn weather.

Don't worry, it got properly cooked after this!

The next morning we got up early to do a walking tour around the many temples/shrines in the area. Apparently we came at one of the best times for autumn leaves in Takayama, and we got to see lots of really beautiful places. From there we headed to the weekday market, where I bought a sarubobo (or monkey baby) keychain for my phone! They seem to be a very popular souvenir in the Hida area (they are adorable and don't look like monkeys at all, despite their name) and are also supposed to bring good luck. Then we were finally able to wander around the old historic streets, which were full of little shops and had a very quaint ancient feel to them.

Then after a quick ramen lunch, it was time to get on the bus to our next destination! Our real goal was Shirakawa-go, yet another World Heritage Site, but I had unwittingly booked us a place that was about 20 minutes away, so we just decided to take it easy that night and just relax there. It was at Hirase Onsen (onsen = hot springs), and we had made a reservation to get dinner and breakfast there, too. So after we got there we decided to go into the onsen (there was a bath right in our ryokan) and soaked a little bit before being called to dinner. When we got there all the food was beautifully arranged at our table (unfortunately I don't have any pictures though), and even though there was already a lot there, over the course of the meal they kept bringing us more! It was all very traditional Japanese food (I think) and really delicious - we even managed to eat it all, even though it took us almost two hours, haha. After dinner we went back up to our room and had a little beer that my parents bought for the sake of the bottle it came in, before going to bed in our futons.

Breakfast the next morning was almost as elaborate but just as tasty - I think having Japanese dinner/breakfast at a ryokan is definitely an experience everybody should try at least once! Then we got on the bus to the historic villages of Shirakawa-go, which are famous for their distinct Gassho-style houses, which (supposedly) look like hands in prayer. First we went to the Gassho Folk Museum, which is an outdoor museum with many Gassho-style buildings set up to look the way the did in the past. It was really cool and also very picturesque, with lots of little ponds and gardens - I think it was one of my favorite places this trip. Then we wandered around the actual village, where people still live today - since most of the houses are private property we just walked along the streets and little shops before getting lunch and then getting on the next bus to Kanazawa!

When we got to Kanazawa, which is mostly a pretty modern city, we went to the Museum of Traditional Arts & Crafts, which had displays of things like Kanazawa's gold lacquer and a collection of obis owned by the citizens, and also the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. My favorite piece there was an exhibit with almost 300 light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, each flashing at the rate of somebody's heartbeat. You could get in line and have your heartbeat measured too, and the furthest lightbulb in the corner would start flashing in time with it! Super cool. Then we got dinner (okonomiyaki) and some crepes with gelato (very yummy) and went to bed.

The next morning we got up for a tour of Myouryuji, which is also sometimes known as the Ninja Temple (though it has nothing to do with ninjas, actually). The reason it's called that, though, is because it's a place full of secret passages, hidden staircases, etc! There was even a room specifically built for the purposes of committing seppuku (or hara-kiri, as most Americans know it) and burning the place down, if an attack happened (they assured us it hadn't been used though, haha). You have to make a reservation in advance for a tour, which is also only in Japanese, but they do have English pamphlets to follow along with and I highly recommend it!

Then we wandered around the old samurai district (stopping in a place that sold ceramics and a historic samurai family house) and got lunch before heading to Kenrokuen, which is a very famous garden that's said to be one of the most beautiful in Japan and containing all 6 attributes of a perfect garden: "spaciousness, seclusion, artifice, antiquity, waterways, and panoramas" (according to Wikipedia). Unfortunately it was raining so I don't think we saw it in all of its glory, but it was still very pretty.

After that we had some extra time before our train, which we spent shopping, and then we got on the train to Maibara (whose station was unexpectedly devoid of eating establishments and anything really, to our dismay) and then took the shinkansen from there back to Tokyo and the train back to Chiba! There weren't any taxis at the station so we walked back to my apartment (in the rain) and finally got home around 1am - tired and wet, but happy to have had such a good trip! Or that's how I felt anyway, even though I had work the next day. :D

family vacation, part one!

Well, it certainly has been a while since my last post! In my defense, I haven't really been traveling recently, but this week has certainly made up for it - my family is visiting for two weeks, so we have been wandering the country for the past few days and will be off again tomorrow! In an effort to keep this post from becoming enormous, I'll just give a quick summary of each day up until now.

On Saturday we got up bright and early to take the shinkansen to Kyoto! We had booked a travel package that included two nights in Kyoto, a night in Hiroshima, and transportation in between. I think it was a first shinkansen experience for everybody except me, so that's exciting.

After getting to Kyoto, we checked into our hotel and then got on a bus to Ryouanji, which is a temple famous for its Zen rock garden and also a World Heritage Site (we went to quite a few of those in just a few days, actually!). Before heading into the temple grounds, we stopped to have a late lunch at a tofu restaurant recommended by my sister's boyfriend's teacher. We ate at a little table right next to a very picturesque little pond, and it did not disappoint! After we ate, we went around and saw the temple and the rock garden (the appeal of which, I have to admit, was a little beyond me). We had been planning to go to Kinkakuji as well afterward, but ran out of time and ended up just taking the bus back to near our hotel and wandering/shopping for a little bit before bed.

View from our tofu restaurant

The next day we got up early to go to Kiyomizudera, another famous temple and World Heritage Site. We got there after a nice scenic walk from the hotel, and the temple was also very pretty. We didn't actually do any of the famous things like walking in between the love stones or drinking from the waterfalls, for the sake of time, but I really enjoyed it anyway. I especially liked all the little shops and streets on the way back down from the temple, which were full of omiyage and free samples!

After that we took a very quick glimpse around Yakasa Shrine (where a wedding ceremony was taking place!) before meeting up with my parents' friends for lunch. I think my sister and her boyfriend enjoyed their first conveyor belt sushi experience a lot, and he even won something in the lottery that you get every 5 plates!

Next our parents' friends took us to Shigaraki, to look at ceramics in the Ceramic Cultural Park and in their museum. I had fun seeing all the tanuki everywhere and was also really impressed by the very very small tea sets that were part of the ceramic exhibit in the museum - they had teapots only about as big as a quarter and cups just bigger than a fingernail! Then we went to a little shop with Shigaraki ceramics, which I gather is pretty famous, before heading to the Hotel Granvia Kyoto to eat at a buffet there. But this was no ordinary buffet - it was super fancy, with gourmet delicacies like Kobe beef and matsutake mushrooms. It was very delicious, and I definitely ate enough to make it worth the price!

The next morning we finally headed to Kinkakuji, or the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, which had been one of our goals since the beginning. It was pretty awesome to see the Pavilion, which was actually gold, even though it was pretty crowded with school groups and other visitors, even on a weekday. It was pretty impressive to see how efficiently they guided visitors in and out - we left a lot earlier than we expected and so we decided to go to Nijo Castle as well!

Kinkakuji

I was expecting it to be like all the other castles I've visited in Japan, which (frankly) are all pretty similar, but it definitely exceeded my expectations! To be fair, it seems like it was in fact a palace where the shogun lived, and so a little different from your typical castle. You could really feel the grandeur and beauty of the place as you walked around, from the beautiful art on the doors/walls to the details on the ceilings and the absolutely gorgeous gardens. I think Nijo Castle was one of my favorite places that we visited, and if I can I'd love to go there again! If I could go once the leaves have all changed color (we were unfortunately a bit too early to see any of the famous Kyoto autumn leaves), I bet it would be stunning (but also super crowded).

Then we had a quick ramen lunch before taking the shinkansen to Hiroshima! Shortly after we got there we decided to take the ferry to Miyajima, to see the famous Itsukushima Shrine (yet another World Heritage site). I love boats, so even though the ride was only 10 minutes I really enjoyed it. We got there just as the sun was setting, and it was already dark and the shrine was closed by the time we walked down to it, but the lights on the iconic torii gate were lit up and it was really beautiful! We spent a while just admiring it and taking (lot and lots of) pictures before wandering down some of the streets with souvenir shops, even though most of them were closing. There we saw the biggest rice paddle in the world and found out that they were invented in Miyajima, which was pretty awesome! After that we had Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki for dinner (not gonna lie, I think I like Kansai/Osaka-style better) before heading back to the hotel.

Itsukushima Shrine's famous torii at night

The next morning we got up and got on the streetcar (I think it's so cool that Hiroshima has streetcars!) to the Atomic Dome, which is the only building hit by the atomic bomb that has been allowed to survive, and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and Park. We watched part of a documentary about the bomb before going into the museum with a volunteer English guide, who was a Japanese lady and very knowledgeable. Going into the museum and seeing all the effects of the first ever nuclear weapon was definitely an experience; very sobering and sad but definitely something I think everybody should do if they can. Afterward I wandered around the Peace Memorial Park by myself for a little as my parents went back in the museum and the other two went to find food. It was a gorgeous day, which I really appreciated. Then my parents and I had another quick ramen lunch before we all hopped on the shinkansen back to Tokyo and Chiba!

Atomic Dome

Today was a leisurely day spent back home in Chiba, which was really welcome after four days of travel. In the morning after breakfast we walked to Port Tower, which is a 125-meter tower along the harbor. On clear days you can see the Tokyo Sky Tree and Mt. Fuji, but we weren't that lucky today. After Port Tower we bought bentos and had a picnic outside in Chiba Minato Park, near my work. Then we went to the Chiba City Museum of Art to check out a pretty cool art exhibit involving 3D flowers and plants that you had to take your shoes off and enter small spaces to see, or find hidden in what seemed like an empty display room. After spending some time shopping at Parco, then we came back for a homemade dinner and a night of rest before our next trip starts tomorrow!

otaki castle festival

This Sunday I headed down to Otaki for the Otaki Castle Festival! A JET friend was participating in the parade, and the promise of Mexicans, ninjas, and horses was impossible to resist. :D

So to get there I went down to Ohara Station again, where I had actually been just a week before (it felt a little strange to be back there so soon), and then I transferred to the Isumi Railway! This was my first time taking a train that wasn't run by a big company like JR, and actually I really liked it. It was interesting because the way the tickets worked felt more like being on a bus than on a train - instead of just tapping in and out with my Suica, I first bought a ticket from a vending machine (I love vending machines that give out tickets, for some reason) and then had to make sure I took a ticket once I got on the train to mark where I had gotten on, before depositing them both in a little box as I got off. Which is how the buses around me work if you don't have a Suica, so it was interesting doing it on a train. Plus, the railway is Moomin-themed! (Wikipedia about them here). I honestly have no idea why it's Moomin-themed, but with Moomin decorations in the train cars and even some Moomin figures along a lake we passed by, it definitely makes the train really charming and cute.

Then when I got off the train, after being greeted by somebody in a traditional outfit (I think a princess one? Not really sure), I did my first Japanese raffle (or lottery? I'm not sure what to call it). There's a little box with lots of different colored balls in it, and you turn the handle and rotate it until a ball comes out, and the color determines your prize. I just got the default prize (a bottle of sports drink), which wasn't very surprising (though the person in front of me got the grand prize!), but it was pretty fun to try. :)

I wasn't really sure where to go after that (they did give me a map but I am bad at those...) so I just kind of followed everybody else who was around until reaching the elementary school, which was the main festival area, complete with lots of festival food stalls and a stage! It was just about lunchtime so I got something to eat and listened to a performance by a high school band before deciding to head to the castle (it was the Otaki Castle Festival, after all).

It turned out the castle was a little over a kilometer away, but the way there went by a really picturesque river with lots of trees, which is not something you can really see in the city (or at least not where I've been). It was also apparently called Mexican Street (or something like that) - when I asked my friend later about the connection with Mexico, apparently way back when a Mexican ship was shipwrecked on a beach nearby, and the people in Otaki helped them out. Nobody else in Japan knew about it until later some dignitaries from Spain visiting another city mentioned it, and then when they looked it up in the town records they found out it was true! Which is a pretty cool story, I think.

Gorgeous!

So next I reached the castle and found a lot of people in armor! There were even people playing kotos (I think) in kimonos in the background, which was pretty cool. I wandered around for a little bit but decided to head back to the elementary school to watch the opening ceremony for the parade, instead of heading back into the castle. When I got back, the mikoshi started to come in! I'm always impressed at how much energy they have and how much they heave them up and down, especially the women (who also look the most bad-ass, I think).

After that, the ceremony started, with somebody coming in on a horse (in armor!), which was pretty cool. I was right in front of the crowd so I had a great view, which was lucky since normally I am much too short to see anything (even in Japan, haha). Then all the parade members started coming in. There were lots of elementary schoolers, looking adorable in armor and kimonos, along with my JET friend! There were also groups of people who from what I understood made their own armor, which was really incredible - I definitely couldn't tell that they were hand-made. Other notable people include some prinesses, some more people on horseback, and a group in traditional Mexican outfits (sombreros and all). They all marched in and then the ceremony started, with some speeches and the debut of the new mascot, Otakki, who I had actually read about in a newspaper before coming. They also staged a fight on stage and had a demonstration with some guns, which was pretty cool! And then the parade started, though I decided not to follow them and instead just kind of chilled in the festival area watching the mikoshi get carried around again (they were still there) because I was lazy. :P

After the parade came back (I went out a little bit onto the parade path on their way back and was a little amused at how exhausted everybody seemed, though I certainly can't blame them), I met up with my JET friend and another English teacher for dinner! The timing was pretty perfect because right after they had gotten back to the festival area, the typhoon that was predicted for the day showed up and it started to rain. I did feel bad for everybody carrying the mikoshi, though, because they were still out in the rain long after everybody in the parade went home. Anyway, we had dinner at a little cafe where they go pretty regularly, apparently, and I finally got to eat tonkatsu, which I've been craving for a while (but have been too lazy to make).

After that I managed to make it home safely despite the typhoon (which luckily seemed to be letting up right as I was leaving) and the delayed/cancelled trains it caused. The Otaki Castle Festival was definitely different from all the other festivals I've been to in Japan, so I'm really glad that I went! If I go again next year I think I'll definitely want to go take a look at the castle, too.

chiba city sights

Yesterday I got to tag along as my coworker took our office's guest to a couple of places in Chiba City, which was great (even more so because it was totally unexpected!). We went to the Kasori Shell Mounds Museum, Shimoda Agricultural Fureai Center, and the Chiba City Folk Museum, none of which I'd been to before.

Our first stop was the Kasori Shell Mounds Museum, whose name I am sure to remember in both Japanese and English because it came up in my first interpreting job but all I could say was 'shell mounds' instead of its proper name. The shell mounds there are the biggest ones in Japan, and I think some of the biggest in the world, too. They are split into the north and south shell mounds, and actually the area where they are is open to the public all the time (only the museum has hours), which I think is pretty cool. When we got there, we got to go on a guided tour led by a volunteer, who explained a lot about the shell mounds for us.

I was a little bit surprised because the majority of the shell mounds are actually left exactly as they are without any excavation, which means that when you look at it you mostly just see the grass and plants that have grown up on top of them, with the slight elevation being the only indication that the mounds are there. Apparently they have decided not to excavate any further than they did in the 1950s, in the interest of preserving them. There are several places where you can see where they did excavate, though! They're basically cross-sections of the mounds behind glass, and it's really interesting to see just how many shells are piled up there. In the southern mounds, you can also see animal and fish bones mixed in, as well as ashes from (cooking?) fires.

After looking at the mounds from both the outside and the inside, we went into the museum, which I found pretty interesting. There was a lot of information about shell mounds in Japan and the people who lived around the Kasori Shell Mounds (and created them, I suppose), including things like their jewelry, pottery, living spaces, etc. As our tour guide was explaining things to us as we walked through, I was too busy trying to pay attention to what he was mentioning at the time to really take a full look at everything on display, so I'll have to go back some time and take my time! Admission is only 60 yen for adults, so I think it's definitely worth it. 

Shells and some ashes in the mounds

Our next stop was the Shimoda Agricultural Fureai Center, which was established to give citizens of the city a chance to get closer to the local agriculture. There's a little market where you can buy local produce, as well as a restaurant that uses all local produce in its dishes. We learned about a program they did with elementary school students, where the kids went on field trips to farms in the area and then created a map that included the places they went and things they saw. It was a really impressively well-made map, considering it was done by 10 sixth-graders, and I thought that having that kind of program was a really good idea.

We had lunch in the restaurant there, which was really tasty! It was buffet-style and there were a lot of different options, so naturally I had to try them all. It seemed like it was the kind of food that you would normally eat in a Japanese home (as opposed to a restaurant), which was a nice change from everywhere else that I've been eating lately.

Our final stop was the Chiba City Folk Museum, which is in a building that looks like a traditional Japanese castle. Despite what a lot of people may think, though, it isn't a real castle that people lived in (like all of the other castles you can visit in cities like Nagoya, Osaka, everywhere) - apparently it was constructed in 1967 on the site of the original Chiba Castle (not sure what happened to it) to be a symbol of the city (or something). I was pretty amused that this wasn't a real castle (though it does look impressive), just like I was amused by all the various works featuring Chibanosuke Tsunetane, the leader of the Chiba clan and apparently a pretty big deal, that all looked different because nobody knows what he actually looked like. The museum is all about the history of Chiba City, and their current special exhibit is of the clothes that people wore when delivering things from or working at certain shops, which were kind of like their brands and so unique to every place (from what I understood of our guide's explanation, at least). My favorite was one for a sushi place, where the logo looks like a shrimp but is actually made up of the characters for 'sushi'.

As with all castles in Japan (or at least all the ones I've been to), we were able to go up to the top and go outside on a little veranda that went all around the castle, to see a view of all of Chiba City. Unfortunately it was a rainy day and not very clear, but it was still cool to look around and try to find the places that I knew (which is admittedly not many, haha).

Apparently the folk museum also has a monthly event when you can try on traditional clothes and armor, which sounds like a lot of fun. You do have to apply for it, but really it's just submitting your name/address/phone number to their email (kyodo.EDL@city.chiba.lg.jp) so that they can do a lottery in case there are more people who show up than they have outfits for. Admission is only 60 yen here too, so I might want to come back and try on some armor sometime!

All in all, I had a great day going from place to place - it was definitely more exciting than sitting at my desk translating all day! :)

ohara hadaka matsuri

And then on Saturday, I went down to Ohara, which is further south along the coast, for the Ohara Hadaka Matsuri! It's apparently one of the biggest events of the year, and it was pretty exciting. For those of you that don't speak Japanese, 'hadaka' means 'naked', and while I didn't actually see anybody celebrating naked (for which I am thankful), all the male participants were shirtless, which is definitely unique among the festivals that I've been to, at least.

So Saturday morning I hopped onto a train, and one transfer and an hour and a half later, I was in Ohara! (Trains are one of my favorite things about Japan. So great.) There were a lot of JETs/WI-ALTs who were planning to go (I think it was like 15-20 people, which is a huge group, especially of foreigners), so we met up at the station (after waiting half an hour for the person who invited us all to show up, haha) and then spent some time at his apartment for a little bit before heading to the festival. I always love seeing the rows of food stands that are always set up at the festivals, even though it's always the same kinds of stands and they repeat every few feet, since seeing them means I'm at a festival!

After getting some festival food - I tried something called buta-tama (I think) which was kind of like okonomiyaki in a more compact, pancake form (and tasty) - we went to the beach for the main event! At almost all festivals, carrying mikoshi, or portable shrines, is a major event, but at the Ohara Hadaka Matsuri, they carry the mikoshi all the way into the water! It was pretty crowded and so it was kind of hard to see, but I did manage to see them, and it was pretty cool. While they were waiting to go in the water, other groups with mikoshi would also toss them up in the air a few times, which I thought was really impressive!

After that we wandered around eating more festival food and just kind of hanging out along the street for a little bit until the parade started. It was pretty impressive to see all the shirtless men carry the mikoshi (though there were some women too!), since that meant they were basically carrying these really heavy wooden shrines on their bare shoulders (whereas usually people have at least sleeves and maybe even extra padding) - there were even a few people with humps that I presume came from years of carrying mikoshi.

The parade ended at the elementary school, where they then all ran in a huge circle, while still carrying the mikoshi! It was definitely too crowded for me to really see anything this time, but I could kind of see the tops of the mikoshi go past at a surprisingly fast pace. They continued running for about ten minutes or so (I think), which again was just plain impressive.

So I'd say the Ohara Hadaka Matsuri was definitely unique among the festivals I've been to, and it was lots of fun! I also got to meet a lot of other JETs/WI-ALTs (and see the ones I already knew again), which is always great. :)

qiball planetarium

This weekend I went to some new places both inside and outside of Chiba City, which is pretty exciting! For the sake of not having one super-long post, I'll be splitting up the weekend into a couple of posts instead.

On Friday, I went to Qiball for Aroma Night at the planetarium! I'm not sure if I can describe Qiball in one term, but it's a place that has a planetarium, science museum, business support center, child raising support center, and a children's exchange center (or something like that; sorry for the awkward translation). It's also where we had out Chiba orientation right after coming to Chiba!  We tried to go to the planetarium after orientation, but the last showing for the day had already ended, so when I found out the planetarium was having Aroma Night, I definitely wanted to go. Aroma Night is basically a show at the planetarium that is also accompanied by various scents - it's a monthly event, and every month they use a different aroma for the show. September's blend was grapefruit herb, or something like that.

So I met up with two friends, and none of us had been to the planetarium before so we were all really excited! I wasn't sure how crowded the event would be so we showed up a bit early, got tickets, and wandered around the museum shop for a bit before going in. When you're in the atrium of Qiball, you see the bottom half of this big globe way up in the air, which is actually the planetarium (which is on the 7th floor), and it's really cool to think that you were just in it.

When you walk in, the part of the planetarium that you watch is the top half of that giant globe, and all the seats even recline! We were all just sitting in our seats getting excited until the show started, and then it did! The lights dimmed and the stars and the scent came out, which was very relaxing. The show lasted 45 minutes, and it was basically 45 minutes of somebody with a very soothing voice explaining things to us about constellations and the moon. I thought it was cool because I could tell that it was a real person reading to us and pointing things out live, instead of a recording, which I thought was impressive.

Anyway, it was definitely an experience and I'm glad I went! I still haven't seen the science museum at all, which I want to (and probably won't be able to resist going to the the planetarium at the same time, haha), so I'm sure I'll be back at Qiball again sometime. :)

umi hotaru, nokogiri-yama

So this weekend one of my friends invited me to go for a drive in Chiba (Prefecture), because a couple of her old friends from France were in Japan and she wanted to show them around. I haven't been anywhere other than Chiba City since I got here, so I gladly accepted her invitation and we were off!

After some deliberation, we picked Nokogiri-yama as our destination, which is about two and a half hours away from Chiba City by car. I'm not going to pretend to know as much about it as I did for the BIB and Chiba City Museum of Art (who I thoroughly researched for work) - in fact I hadn't even heard of it until we decided to go there, though it's probably quite well-known.

We started out from Soga and decided to drive there using regular roads, instead of the highway, so we could see more of Chiba. Halfway to our destination, the Tokyo Bay Aqua Line came up in conversation, so we decided to swing by and take a look. The Aqua Line connects Kisarazu, Chiba to Kawasaki, Kanagawa, across Tokyo Bay. There's a bridge that goes until a service area called Umi Hotaru (sea firefly) about halfway across, and then the rest of it is an underwater tunnel. We only went as far as Umi Hotaru, but it was really cool to cross the bridge and be surrounded by beautiful water as we drove. When we got to Umi Hotaru, we spent some time admiring the view (I've included a picture below) and trying to find notable sites like the Tokyo Sky Tree (which we did find!). There are also restaurants and game centers there, along with lots of little vendor stalls, which was cool.

The view from Umi Hotaru, facing Chiba!

Then we stopped for lunch at a seafood restaurant near to Nokogiriyama, called Kanaya. Apparently it's been featured on TV before, so when we got there there was a bit of a line, even though it was around 2:00 in the afternoon. Since it's right by the seaside (we were lucky enough to sit at a table right by a huge window by the sea), obviously the seafood there is very fresh. but I was told that in fact they keep their seafood live in basins until it's ordered, making it even fresher! I ordered a dish that involved eggs and various shellfish and shrimp over rice, which was quite tasty. :)

The view from the Nokogiriyama Ropeway

And then we were finally at our destination, Nokogiri-yama! We decided to take the cable car, the Nokogiriyama Ropeway, which gave us a really great view (though it was a bit crowded, haha). The view where the cable car left us off was also really amazing, and we spent a few minutes admiring it before deciding to go see the giant Buddha at Nihon-ji, which was on the mountain. Unbeknownst to most of us, who had never been there before, this was the start of what ended up seeming like a never-ending series of stairs! On the way there we saw a lot of stone figures, but many of them were missing their heads, which is apparently the result of an anti-Buddhist movement that happened in the Meiji Era.

Headless figures

When we reached the giant Buddha, it was really quite impressive - it's the largest stone Buddha in Japan, at 31.05 meters (or almost 102 feet) tall. I'd seen the Buddha in Nara when I studied abroad two years ago, which is apparently only 18.18 meters (60 feet) tall, so this one wins! After that we climbed up a little bit more to see the view from the Ruriko Observatory at the top of the mountain (amazing) and the Hundred-shaku Kwan-non before heading back down on the cable car. All in all it was a little bit tiring to hike up and down stairs to go from place to place, but the views were gorgeous and it was definitely worth it! I would definitely recommend it to anybody interested in going.

The largest stone Buddha in Japan

 After that we stopped by the beach for a little bit, to admire the sunset and relax a little bit after all our exercise. Even though where I live in Chiba City is actually very near the ocean, I haven't gone by the water at all (I'm not sure if there are beaches, really), and it was really nice to just relax by the waves for a little bit. It really made me realize how I'm now living on an island country, with lots of beautiful beaches that I'll have to try and visit during my stay!


On the drive home we took the highway this time, and stopped by a very tasty ramen shop (Menba Kuradashi Miso Kikuya) near Soga station for dinner. This was the first time I've had ramen since coming to Japan this time, and it was delicious (of course)! It was a shop that specialized in miso ramen, so I had their most popular Hokkaido miso ramen, and I can see why it was the most popular.

I came home very full and very tired, but also very happy from all that I saw that day. It was definitely a good first foray into Chiba Prefecture, and hopefully the beginning of many more! :D

chiba city museum of art + BIB

So like I said in my last post, I only moved to Chiba City about six weeks ago, but I have managed to visit a fair amount of interesting places already. In the interest of doing every place justice on the blog, though, I'm just going to start posting from the ones I've visited most recently, since I'll be able to recall/describe them better. So I'll start with my recent trip to the Chiba City Museum of Art, to see the Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava exhibit!

This was actually my second time at the Chiba City Museum of Art, and both times have also been work-related. The first time, I got to meet the Vice Director of the museum, who told me a little bit about the museum and the building that it's in. The museum opened in 1995, which means it's still relatively new. It's also actually in the same building as the Chuo Ward Office, which is actually a Neo-Renaissance style building built in the 1920s (plus the additional parts they added on top of it that actually house most of the museum and the ward office). I was really surprised to see that style of architecture in Japan, since with its marble and columns it looks very Western to me (apparently nowadays it's a popular place for cosplay photoshoots, probably for that reason!), but apparently they were pretty common before World War II, when most of them were destroyed (by bombs, I think). The part that was most surprising though, was when the vice director told me that the original building was somewhere else, and the entire building was moved to where it is now! I'm not really sure how you move an entire building from one place to another, but it certainly doesn't look any worse for wear. :D


So the exhibit I went to see was a collection of works from the Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava, which is one of the world's oldest and largest juried competitions for picture book illustrations. Picture book illustrators from all over the world submit their works to be judged at the event held every two years in Bratislava, Slovakia. The BIB awards 12 honors: a Grand Prix, five Golden Apples, five Plaques, and an Honorary Mention to a Publisher. There's also a children's choice award (which is pretty self-explanatory). It began in 1967, and actually the very first Grand Prix winner was an illustrator from Japan! This is in fact the fourth time that the Chiba City Museum of Art has hosted an exhibition of works from the BIB, which I think is really cool.

The current exhibit at the CCMoA involves works from the 2011 BIB: the winners, the Japanese entries, illustrations from Slovakia, and a special exhibit on rare Japanese pop-up books. It was really cool to see the original works that become the pages of a picture book; I don't think I (or most people, probably) had ever really considered picture book illustrations to be art like we usually see in museums. But looking at the pieces, I realized that they really are art - before they get resized and replicated and reprinted into books, the illustrator has to actually make the pictures that go in them, which are very much art. The Grand Prix winner, Eun Young Cho, makes this especially clear in her winning work, 'Run, Toto!' Almost every page uses a different medium, including a page using thumbprints in black ink, which I thought was really cool. They also had the actual published picture books available for people to read, which made me spend a lot longer in the exhibit than I had planned, because I just wanted to read them all (even though they weren't all in languages I could read, haha)!

The special exhibit on pop-up books was also pretty cool (though I'm not sure if pop-up books is really the right translation). They had works dating from as old as the Meiji period, centering around the three main themes of 'moving', 'understanding', and 'jumping'. There were works that looked more like traditional pop-up books but also some where you had to look through them from the front to see a scene (they had a name but I forgot what it was, oops), and more.

The Biennial of Bratislava exhibit at the Chiba City Museum of Art is going on until October 21, so if you get a chance I highly recommend you check it out! Apparently there is also a very small collection of traditional Slovakian corn dolls, crystal, and ceramics borrowed from the Embassy of the Slovak Republic located in front of the entrance to the exhibit. It wasn't set up when I saw the exhibit (since I went on the second day after it opened), but I'm sure it's definitely worth seeing too. :)

Here's the link to the museum's webpage (Japanese only, even though there is a link saying 'English' - it doesn't work): http://www.ccma-net.jp/index.html

self-introduction

Hello! My name is Rochelle, and I'm a first year Coordinator of International Relations (CIR) for the Japan Exchange & Teaching (JET) Program. I currently live and work in Chiba City, Japan!

My plan for this blog is to post about all the travel and events I go to during my stay in Japan, both as a way for me to remember what I've done (because my memory is pretty awful, haha) and to hopefully introduce anybody else following along to the fun and interesting places in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, and Japan in general!

I came to Japan and Chiba City about six weeks ago, so everything for me is still pretty new and unexplored - I hope you'll follow along as I get to know what my new home has to offer. :)