I was the English lesson

Today I went to Tristan's school. I did my self introduction (all the kids are taught to do this). My name, where I'm from, and what I like. I took the iPad with pictures of my cats & kids. I fill in a few details trying to keep it pretty basic but then the kids get to ask me questions. The hardest question this time around was how many times have I been to Disneyland...I have no idea so improvised with around 20. Got asked how old I was...old enough. Triss told them you can't ask a woman her age :) Anyway it was quite fun. I was in a 3rd year class, a 2nd year class (with his supervisor who is a sweetheart and very good at teaching and including me--she was Triss' supervisor at his old school the previous 2 yrs), and then Tristan's 3rd year elective class where he is the sole teacher. We ate lunch with one class of kids.

Everything is much more structured in Japan than in the States. Kids serve the lunch for their classroom. Everyone waits until everyone is served and ready before starting, you wait for most to be done before permission is given to clear your place, one young man took my tray to clear it for me, and then the kids do the clean up including mopping the hallways on their hands and knees using clothes. Many hands make the work go quickly. Schools don't have janitors...the kids and teachers do the cleaning. It's just the way it is.

The walk to the bus and then from the bus home was in pouring rain, and even though I bought an umbrella the wind and sheer amount of water soon soaked our shoes and legs. I believe the vice principal said it was from a monsoon in India.

We were going to go out and about this afternoon but it is just too miserable so we are staying in to dry out and Midori is coming over for dinner later (tomato soup and cheese toast). One more day to try and get everything done. How sad.

Geibikei Gorge

It was a long day and we are beat but this trip was so totally worth it. You float on the river through the gorge in boats with a gondolier telling about things you are seeing(in Japanese so Triss translated a bit for me). On the way back the guy sang a song and a hawk was flying overhead--very serence and beautiful, even poetic. I told Triss it would be a great date. Pictures coming soon.

This happened last trip to Japan too....we get so busy doing stuff I don't have time to post about it. Wednesday is coming waaaay too fast.

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Breakfast

One of the ALTs (Assistant Language Teacher) found a pancake place. Tristan says breakfast places are hard to find...and ones that open early are even rarer. So the word got spread about the ALT community when this place opened up. Saturday before all the festivities we went there. The owner lady greeted us when we came in. On a previous visit Triss had mentioned I was coming and she remembered. Our lovely breakfast was a small cup of yogurt with jam, 3 large buttermilk pancakes with butter, pwd sugar, and syrup, scrambled eggs with ketchup (just like in Mexico), bacon (not crisp so you wouldn't like it JudyR) and salad. I don't know where the idea of salad for breakfast came from but Triss said it's just the way it is.

Pictures

I'm having difficulty with inserting pictures. Thumbnails are too small and the full-sized pictures don't fit the blog format--showing only half. Please click on the picture to see the whole thing. Sorry for the inconvenience. I'll figure it out later :)

Yamaboko Parade

On Sunday morning we met one of Midori's clients and helped out with her English lesson. We chatted and I showed her some pictures I had on the iPad of family and my kitties and she showed us pictures of when she was in high school and did a home stay in CA.

When the lesson was over we headed back to town for the Yamaboko Parade. Yamaboko are 5 meter high floats and there are 11 of them in this parade, each pulled by a group. We saw them parked along the shopping arcades on Saturday and I was able to get some closer pictures. For the parade we ended up on a street corner which gave a pretty good view but was right when they turned the corner so it was hard to get really good shots.

The floats were preceeded by a procession of samurai with Date Masamune and some others on horseback. Interspered were more groups of sparrow dancers, city officials, and the Mikoshi from Aoba temple. A Mikoshi is a portable Shinto shrine and it was carried by people dressed in white who have the same ancestrey as Date Masamune.

One of the Yamaboko had the 7 lucky gods of Japan.

A young boy was carrying a lion's head that would "bite" down on the heads of people sitting along the street. Midori explained it would bring good luck to those people. One very small child was terrified by this and Tristan and I compared it to children sitting on Santa's lap and being scared.

We didn't stay for the whole parade but went over to the park to get some food. I couldn't believe how croweded everything was. It was doubled from the day before so we found a curb to sit on and Midori and Tristan ventured in for different items and brought them out for us to share. Then we headed home to rest awhile before going out to dinner that night.

Aoba Matsuri 2010

During the Meiji period, in 1874, Aoba Shrine was built to commemorate Date Masamune (1567-1636), a samurai, clan leader and founder of Sendai. The original festival started that next year, on the anniversary of his death--May 24th. At some point it quit being observed but has been revived in recent years.

On Saturday we headed down to the park and walked through the festival booths. Lots of festival food and live events going on.

Sendai Suzume Odori (Sendai Sparrow Dance) is a folk dance that had been lost for a long time. It is believed the original dance was done by the stone masons building Sendai Castle and performed for Date at a feast. His clan crest has sparrows on it and the dance was named because the movements resembled sparrows dancing about on the ground picking up food. It has become a major part of the festival. The music is the same (each group has their own musicians following the dancers) but each interprets the dance a little differently. In the afternoon, one of the main streets, Johzenji-dori, was closed to traffic and the groups paraded down the street dancing as they went. This went on until around 9pm although we didn't stay that long.