trip down memory lane

So I have yet another weekend of adventure to post about, but I'm feeling lazy so I will just do it plus-minus style (as we do on the CIR forums, haha). It was a really good weekend and will probably mostly just be pluses, so you can think of it as bullet-style if you prefer. :)

+ Spent my two days of summer vacation + the first of two three-day weekends (in a row) in September with a trip to Nagoya
- I only get two days of summer vacation (how I miss real summer vacation)

+ Spent the first day paragliding in Shizuoka! Got to try paragliding by myself off a little hill and also tandem off a mountain, plus free lunch (which was tasty)
+ Going up the mountain for the tandem jump involved riding what looked like a homemade one-rail open train literally up the side of the (rather steep) mountain. It was great.
- Forgot my camera so I have no proof
+ Tandem flight was awesome~
- Shorter than I expected and didn't get to see Mt. Fuji
+ Staff was super friendly, including the teacher who let us all run straight at him all day as we paraglided off the bunny hill and a lady who even gave me a ride to a station an hour away on her way home from work)
+ Got to see my TOA roommate after that and crash at her place

+ Made it safely to Nagoya
+ Saw my high school friend Megumi for the first time in yeearrrs and managed to catch up during lunch despite her busy schedule
+ Got to see my host mom again!
+ They let me stay at their house again
+/? Almost nothing has changed since I was there - same walk I took every day on my way to work, same room and bed (and pillowcase even), same placemats
+ Went to go see cormorant fishing with my host mom in Gifu
- Felt bad for the cormorants like I thought I would

+ Remembered how to get to Nanzan and wandered around campus (hasn't changed a bit)
+++ Met up with two of my fellow IJ600 classmates and spent a great day wandering around old places in Nagoya like Sakae, singing karaoke, and eating yummy meals
+ Finally did purikura again
- Don't have a digital copy of the pictures
+ Ended up spending the night at my friend's and it was super fun

+ Went to an event by Nagoya Swings, the group that I swing danced with and performed with during a play while studying abroad
+ Remembered some faces (surprisingly, after 3 years) and one remembered me
- Only stayed for an hour and most of it was a beginner's lesson
+ Went to dinner with some other Nanzan friends after that (at Outback Steakhouse, haha)
+/- It was tasty but expensive
+ They arranged for a cake to welcome me back and congratulate two others on graduating!
+ Got home in the rain before the typhoon really started to hit

- Had to leave on Monday

--- Typhoon was mostly blown over but had already done its damage to public transportation
+ Managed to get on a shinkansen to Shizuoka not long after getting to Nagoya Station, with a seat (and power charger)
- Had to get off at Shizuoka and wait for a couple of hours until the river water went down a little
+/- Managed to get on the first shinkansen that made it back to Tokyo, after being literally pushed inside and against all the other people already in it
- Stood the whole way squished between lots of other irritated people

+ Made it back in time for my Analogfish concert
++ Concert was great! Got to see them pretty up-close


+++ Safely made it back home to Chiba, tired but happy after a busy five days

disaster prevention drill

So September 1 is national disaster prevention day in Japan (because as we all know, Japan is a very natural disaster-prone country), and so I'm sure there were events going on all over the country in relation to that. In Chiba each year there are events, but this year was a little bit special! There's something called the Coalition of Nine Regional and Local Governments, including prefectures and major cities in the Tokyo metropolitan area, and every year they hold a joint disaster prevention drill. This year's host happened to be Chiba, so everything happened on a much larger scale than usual.

There were drills taking place all over the city, but the main event took place in the Soga Sports Park, which is a huge area for sports that includes Fukuda Denshi Arena, the home stadium for Chiba's pro soccer team JEF United, Fukuda Denshi Arena, where my frisbee team has a big joint practice every month, and more playgrounds and fields.

I went with a couple of new arrivals to Chiba City, and although disaster prevention drills may not sound super exciting, it was actually really cool! We got to see things like tanks/helicopters/fire trucks/water trucks and other vehicles that get employed in disaster situations, other cool technology like a little plane that can be launched by hand to connect wireless transmissions over a wide area, and things like baths/showers/toilets that get set up in emergency areas (which was cooler than it sounds, I promise).


Other highlights included getting to see them make emergency rations and even get some, seeing them work on a replicated burning building, and getting to ride the earthquake truck, where we first felt a simulated earthquake of the same magnitude of how March 11 felt in Chiba, then how it felt in Tohoku. (It was pretty intense.)

PM Abe is in there somewhere, I promise

But the biggest highlight of the day was seeing the Prime Minister! I had no idea that he would be there (but my coworkers apparently did), but I guess the joint disaster prevention drill was big/important enough for him to be there, so he came! I couldn't get any good pictures, but I was definitely less than 20 feet away from him and one of the people I came with even shook his hand! It was pretty cool to see him in person and also dressed in work clothes (or maybe it was some sort of uniform? Rescue worker-ish). The mayor was also dressed the same way (it was interesting to see him in not a suit for once) and was also looking super happy, though I can't say I blame him!

Anyway, I thought I was pretty well-informed about disaster prevention before, but this was a good chance for a refresher and also get to some new information (and free stuff!), so I'm glad I went! Apparently the joint disaster prevention drill takes place in a different member city each year, too, so going this year was pretty lucky. :)

tokyo + narita-san

So the next in my series of catch-up posts is my weekend in Tokyo/Narita with my friend Dylan from middle school! We hadn't seen each other since high school but he was in Japan for a few days (after a year spent traveling around the world for research, what) and knew I was there so we met up! We spent Saturday in Tokyo and on Sunday we visited Narita-san Shinshoji Temple (as per my suggestion, like a good Chiba-kun Ambassador).

So on Saturday we met up and had lunch in Asakusa before seeing the famous Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate) and walking down the big street toward Sensoji Temple, where we got omikuji fortunes (mine was just regular luck but Dylan's was the best luck) and had a good look around, before heading toward the riverside for a short boat ride! We took a 'water bus' down the river and admired the sights (though I have no pictures since I'd done it before), before heading to Harajuku. When we got there we went to a really cool place called the Design Festa Gallery, which was a free exhibit space with lots of artists displaying and selling their stuff - there was a lot of cool works so I would definitely go there again! We finished up the day by stopping by Akihabara for (more) shopping and wandering around (and almost went to a maid cafe but didn't).

The next day, we headed off to Narita-san before Dylan's flight home in the afternoon! I've been to Narita before but only just around the station (and technically Narita-san but only as far as the gate), so I was looking forward to seeing the temple for the first time. I had heard that it was a really beautiful place, and I was not disappointed!

The road leading to the temple was very picturesque and interesting, with lots of little shops and stone statues of the zodiac animals all along the way. There was even a store for the Narita Yume Bokujo farm that I went to on the unofficial store, and hearing me talk about their soft serve, Dylan had some and said it was possibly the best he'd ever had (yeahh).

Anyway, then we entered Narita-san Temple, which was huge and very interesting. My main impression was of lots of clusters of things: lots of stone figurines placed among rocks, lots of turtles and koi in a pond, lots of what looked kind of like gravestones (? though I'm pretty sure they weren't) on the hills, lots of buildings! We just wandered around slowly around and even came across a waterfall that really felt like it could have been back in the mountains of Georgia. Weird. We also came across the Great Peace Pagoda, that included a time capsule put in a few decades ago to be opened in about 400 years (I think), including a message from President Reagan! Pretty cool.


I'm sure we only saw a tiny fraction of the giant area that makes up the temple grounds, and I would love to go back to see the rest. Maybe in the fall, once the leaves have changed color? Something tells me it would be breathtaking (and probably crowded). Anyway, I'm glad to have been able to take a friend to a famous place in Chiba during his short Japan experience! :)

chiba three generations festival

 So this post is way overdue, but last month was Chiba City's 親子三代祭り (Oyako Sandai Matsuri), or the Three Generations Festival! I went to it for the first time last year shortly after arriving in Chiba City, so it was yet another full-circle moment that made me think about how things have (and haven't) changed from a year ago. One thing that didn't change: it was a lot of fun!




Last year I went early to help the CCIA set up and watch the youth exchange students carry a mikoshi (portable shrine) down the street, but this year I just spent a little time wandering around and seeing the festival in the afternoon by myself, which I didn't have a chance to do last year. Even though I think most people envision the countryside or smaller towns when they think of traditional festivals (I do, at least), I feel like none of the excitement or atmosphere was lost in the much more urban setting of downtown Chiba! There were still people everywhere, food stands everywhere, and even performances taking place all around.



After that I headed into the CCIA to have somebody help me put on my yukata (taking those kimono lessons clearly didn't help much, though I blame it on the fact that kimono and yukata obis are different) and start practicing the Chiba dance for the festival! Having danced it for roughly 2.5 solid hours last year, I had thought at the time that I'd remember the dance forever but alas, this was not the case. Luckily, it's actually pretty simple and it came back quickly.



And then it was time for the real thing! The way it works is that groups and organizations from around the city (though on-the-spot participation is also encouraged!) line up all around a certain route and follow it around the city, dancing the whole time! In the center of the streets are taiko groups from the city and all around the prefecture that drum while we dance. One of my favorite parts about participating is that you get to see the taiko performances up close while dancing!

By the end, we were all pretty tired and hot and sweaty, but it was still a lot of fun! I got to see the mayor dancing this year, which was a goal of mine since I had somehow missed it last year, not to mention lots of cute little kids doing some intense taiko drumming. Definitely a good time. :)