Now we’ve come to the grand finale of my week of Obon, and what a grand finale it is (I think this stuff was more interesting. I mean I had fun the other days, but aquariums and festivals are just more fun than me going to school or whatever else I did). This one even comes with pictures! Through the magic of technology, I can share my Facebook albums with you even if you’re one of those weirdos who doesn’t have one (or just isn’t friends with me, which is probably for your own good)! This is a good thing since Yahoo made Flickr suck, and now I can’t access my account. Just click on the blue titles and be transported to the magical land of Japan, then come back here to figure out what they actually are.
Toba Aquarium
Early Friday morning, we took the train to Toba. From there, we took an awesome boat to Irukajima, or Dolphin Island. It’s called that because it’s shaped like a (slightly headless) dolphin. The boat was three stories. The first was mostly seats, the second had a snack bar, and the third was the deck where we went because there was a good breeze and it was good for pictures. One of the JET’s shirts was whipping in the wind as he held out his arms, so of course we started singing, “Near, far, wherever you are, I believe that the heart does go oooonnnnn…”. Right when we got there, we saw signs that the dolphin show was starting in half an hour, so we walked around a little until then. There was a mini aquarium which consisted mostly of about 20 tanks like you’d find in any 10 year old’s bedroom. In the middle was a big bathtubby-tank where you could touch the fish swimming around (“gently,” we couldn’t try to catch them unfortunately). There was a small octopus in there. I kind of hoped someone would try to pick it up just to watch it wrap its tentacles around their arm and try to attack them. No such luck. In another small tank, you could put your hand in, and a bunch of these tiny fish would come up and eat bacteria (or flesh, I couldn’t read) off of your hand. You could still feel the tingling a few minutes after taking your hand out. I hope they cleaned my hands well, because there wasn’t any soap in the nearby sink. We headed back to see the dolphin show. It was the most disappointing dolphin show I’ve ever seen. There were two dolphins, but the trainers spent more time talking about their personalities and gender differences than making them do tricks. They basically retrieved a soccer ball, jumped over a stick ONCE, collected some rings (not caught them in the air, collected them. The equivalent to when you throw our dog Jeter a treat, instead of catching it, he lets it hit his face, then eats it from the ground), then did that thing where they swim vertically backwards by shaking their tail. The “grand finale” was them jumping out of the air a few times. Overall, it lowered our expectations for the rest of the park. We then took a chairlift up to the top where there was a really cool view of the surrounding coast and islands. There was a big dolphin statue with a bell that people in love could ring then add a lock to the gate (like that bridge in Paris). There were a bunch of girls going up and taking their pictures alone. I would have offered my services to get my picture with them, but I couldn’t decide what a good price would be. At the top we enjoyed both the view, and a girl’s (we think) shirt that said “No brick, no life.” I can only assume she’s going into construction. Shortly after, we saw the magnificent shirt that inspired this title. I can only begin to guess what they were attempting to say. We then took a less-cool ferry (featuring statues of two mermaids with hair seemingly growing from their nipples, an Aryan waiter, and a Marilyn Monroe look-alike) to the actual aquarium. It had the usual aquarium stuff. Some highlights included a harmonica-playing kiss-blowing sittup-doing walrus, two isopods (Kabutos) “fighting,” a penguin who’s head would follow your fan like a cat to a laser pointer, and the surprisingly nice butt of one of the scubadivers. After the aquarium, we headed back to Tsu where we had a reservation at the Beer Garden, an all you can eat, all you can drink buffet with personal grills on the table for roasting all kinds of meat (beef, pork, chicken, duck, misc.). Towards the end of the meal, some drunk Japanese college kids came over and talked to us for a little bit. Nobody loves foreigners more than kids and drunk people. Every once in a while, I’ll pass a drunk salaryman who wants to shake my hand and welcome me to Japan. Some will even try to speak a little English. They left after a little bit, then we finished our drinks and followed suit. We headed to a karaoke bar, where we ran into none other than our drunk Japanese friends. They came in and sang with us for a little bit, but (luckily) eventually left. Karaoke can be fun with a lot of people, but when you have basically two separate groups doing their own thing, it’s kind of a mess. Once they were gone, the real party started. It was still a decent sized group, so most songs picked were ones a lot of people know. Due to this (and the drinks), many songs were more yelling than singing, but no less fun. It’s good to have a few songs you don’t know because it gives your voice time to rest. I learned that if I want to sing Take On Me, I have to do it early on when my voice is still capable of hitting those high notes (the slight autotune helps with keeping it in tune). We finished around 1, which is way past the last train, so the girls took a cab, while the guys decided to walk. I didn’t mind walking that distance, but by the time we got home, it was already 2am. Luckily we didn’t have to get up as early the next day.
Nara Lantern Festival
On Saturday morning, after about 7hr. of sleep (less than my preferred minimum 8, and even more preferred 10-12), we took the 2hr. train to Nara for the lantern festival. One of our friends looked a lot like Nara’s mascot, Sento-kun, so he bought a pair of antlers to finish the transformation. A few other JETs did, as well. As we were walking, there were a lot of people taking pictures, both because of the resemblance and because there were a bunch of funny gaijin walking around with foam antlers. Down the road was a big park featuring Nara’s main attraction: deer. In ye olden days, deer were considered sacred and it was illegal to harm them, so their population exploded. In the park, there were at least 20 deer just laying around together, tired from the heat. For less than $1.50, you can get sembei, special crackers to feed the deer with. You can feed them directly, or put part of it in your mouth and have them eat it, Lady and the Tramp style (though usually they don’t quite kiss you). Also, if you bow to them, they sometimes bow back. When they don’t, you just look like an idiot. We went to a nearby shrine where I got a new goshuin (red stamp thing. I’ll do a short write-up or something about them later). After taking pictures and getting our stamps, we headed down the main street where there were various omiyage shops. I got a cool sweat towel (these are a necessity in this weather) with an angry god on it (I think it’s Raijin, but it’s hard to tell). There was also a kimono store where a few girls got kimonos, and I got a dark blue jinbei (the outfit, not the Fishman). A jinbei is a much lighter version of my taekwondo outfit, but with shorts instead of pants. We needed to grab food quickly before all meeting up again, so a few of us went to the great Makudonarudo (often shortened to Makku or Micky D’s). For some reason, in the eating area upstairs, there was a huge piano in the middle of it. It wasn’t a nicer area, it was just like any other McDonalds, but with a grand piano (for those extra fancy nights, I guess). By then it was late enough to head down to the main shrine and Todaiji, the temple of the giant Buddha. The path was lined with lanterns to guide everyone along the way. There were also a few places to buy your own lantern that the mikos (girls working at the shrine) would put a candle in. Before we even got to the first shrine, our candles had gone out, which seemed like a bad sign (they didn’t just go out, they were completely melted). However, later on we were able to get free candles. We would have been better off using trick candles, because the new ones lasted about as long as the first. At one of the buildings, there was a small performance going on with an opera singer and a small orchestra. I don’t think I had ever heard Japanese opera singing before (unless the Fire Emblem song in Smash is Japanese. I think it’s Latin), and the guy singing didn’t look like I expected an opera singer to look (he was skinny, for one. He seemed more nerdy than anything else). We were in a hurry to see everything before the last train, so we moved along. Between the aquarium the day before and walking around Nara, my feet were killing me, but we kept moving to the daibutsu (giant Buddha). We got there with about a half hour to spare, but had to wait in line with a ton of people (the daibutsu is a World Heritage Site, and is therefore super popular). One girl there had a light blue kimono with a big red belt/bow around it. She looked just like Genie from Aladdin, which made me happy. We used our gaijin smash to just walk through the crowds and get to the more open pathway to the temple. I was amazed at how big the building alone was. I try to take pictures of as much as I can, but there are so many things that pictures don’t do justice to. They’re little more than something to remind me of the actual thing. It also doesn’t help that my camera sucks at night. Inside the temple is a 49ft. 1,263 year old giant Buddha statue with two smaller gold statues on either side. In the temple is a giant pole with a 2ft. hole that kids can crawl through that represents the size of the daibutsu’s nostril. After walking through the temple and getting one last goshuin, we headed back to the train station. On the way, we passed a bus station that would take us back for $2. At that point, I would have payed $10 to not have to walk back. We managed to catch the second to last train, so we weren’t in as much of a rush. On the way back, it was decided a few of us were gonna go back to my place and play Smash Bros. We got back around 1am, but I’m always DTS (down to smash) and I could sleep in the next day, so I rushed home to clean my room while the others got drinks from the konbini. We spent the next 2 hours playing some intense 7-player Smash, after which I decided I need a new tv (I have my priorities).
Sunday I woke up at about 3pm and sat around all day watching tv and playing games until I had to go to bed at around 10-11 since I had to wake up by 6 for the start of my first full week of work.
How do I have time to do such much awesome stuff? Will I actually have anything to do at work tomorrow? Will I spend most of it writing 2.5 blog entries then release them over 3 days? Did I already do that but kept the questions in future tense to maintain the illusion that everything’s written immediately after I do it? Find out next time on the Gaijin Chronicles!
One Comment