August 25, 2012 - Super Yosakoi

Despite the heat and humidity, there were a bunch of festivals in Tokyo this weekend.  I definitely thought we needed to attend one, but the question was, which one?  We solved this problem by picking the most convenient one:  the Harajuku Omotesando Super Yosakoi Festival.  The Harajuku Omotesando area is just a few stops away from us on the subway.  I didn't know much about the festival before we went, just that there would be a bunch of dance troupes performing on a couple of different stages.  There would also, of course, be several food booths - very important. :)

Later I did a little research on the festival to know more about what we saw.  Yosakoi is a style of dance that originated in the city of Kochi, which has held a yosakoi festival every year since 1954.  It has spread all over Japan, and the particular festival we were attending has been held for over 10 years.  Yosakoi combines traditional dance movements with modern music.  The dances all use the naruko, which is a small wooden clapper originally used to scare birds away from rice fields.  The dance troupes may also make use of other props, and we saw several where a large (giant) flag was incorporated into their dance.  The Super Yosakoi festival we attended featured about 6,000 dancers in about 100 troupes.

We met up with our friends the Webbs at the festival.  The only drawback to meeting our friends is that it meant the kids were less interested in the actual festival.  There were three different stages set up on the edges of Yoyogi Koen (park) where the various troupes performed.  There were also many food booths scattered around.  While walking among the three stages checking out the dancing, we also checked out the food.  Our family operated on the principle of sharing food so that we could try more things.

My pictures from the festival didn't turn out that well.  Most of them were blurry.  But here's one of the kids and their friends with a few members of one of the troupes waiting to perform.  (My friend Whitney got a better picture of the kids with the dance troupe, but she hasn't set it to me yet.)

I also used my iPhone to take some videos, but again, those don't look that great, either.  Since I was using my iPhone, I couldn't zoom in at all.  I poked around on YouTube and found a video that somebody took at our festival.  They have snippets of a couple of different dances all put together in one video of about 4 minutes, so this can give you a flavor of the festival.
Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGNoEEWXNhY

August 24, 2012 - Costumes and Swords

The kids have been very lazy since we got back from the States.  I've tried to interest them in various activities, but I haven't gotten a nibble.  I think it's partly because of the heat and humidity.  I thought we'd be prepared for it after all the years we've lived in Houston, but there is a key difference: we don't walk anywhere in Houston when it's this hot.  (It's a bit of an exaggeration to say we don't walk anywhere, but not much.)  We generally hop in our cars, which are right outside, drive to where we're going, park in a big parking lot close by, and walk into a blast of air conditioning.  Here in Tokyo, not so much.  First of all, we hardly ever drive.  It's usually more of a hassle than it's worth.  So instead, we take the train.  We walk to the train, have a barely-air-conditioned ride, and then walk to our destination.  You get hot!

Today, though, I decided the kids and I were doing something.  They had their first official piano lesson in the morning, we had lunch, and then we headed out.  In my Tokyo guidebook, I found two small museums just north of Yoyogi Park, so not far from us.  One was the Bunka Gakuen Costume Museum and the other was the Japanese Sword Museum.  We walked to the train station, took the train, then walked to the costume museum, so yes, we were plenty hot by the time we arrived, especially since we had a wee bit of trouble finding the costume museum.

The costume museum did not quite match the description in my guidebook.  According to the guidebook, clothing from Africa, the Middle East, China, India, Western countries, and Japan are exhibited.  Well, I guess they didn't mean all at once.  We arrived and paid for our admission (not too bad, 500 yen for me and 200 yen for the kids) and were directed upstairs to Gallery 1.  Pictures were not allowed, so I don't have any to share, but Gallery 1 was a very large room with clothing items from several different countries in Africa.  There were also a few displays where touching was allowed.  Once the kids and I had worked our way through the gallery, we looked for a way to the next gallery.  There were four doors in the room, including the one through which we entered, but none seemed to go on to another gallery.  Finally, we headed back down and noticed Gallery 2 across from the admission desk.  It was a smaller room but still had several interesting costumes from Africa.  But what about Gallery 3?  Not seeing one, we headed to the admissions desk to ask.  The person working did not have much English, and my Japanese is currently quite pathetic, but I think we managed to understand each other.  It appears that there are only two galleries and that they rotate the exhibits.  We happened to come when they were displaying African costumes.  Not quite what we were expecting, but still, we enjoyed it.

From the costume museum we walked to the sword museum.  On the first floor was a display on how the swords were produced, though we didn't notice this until we had come back downstairs.  On the second floor was where the swords themselves were exhibited.  We paid our admission fee here (600 yen for me, free (!) for the kids).  Again, no pictures were allowed, but the three of us admired all the swords, many dating back several hundred years.  There wasn't much English in the displays, but they had English handouts for us on sword construction and vocabulary. 

After our museum time, we headed to the train (by a slightly circuitous route - not intentional), rode to our station, and walked home.  Overall, we probably spent more than an hour walking outside.  Yes, it's hot here!

One unfortunate piece of news today:  I got an email from ASIJ telling me that the middle school orientation on Monday was mandatory for both new and returning students.  I had assumed it was only for the new students, and this email was the first time I had heard otherwise.  The news was unfortunate because I had made dentist appointments for both Greer and Cooper that day.  We had also just found out the previous night that the elementary school orientation on Friday was not only for the new students, but returning students were welcome to meet their teachers.  Oh, well.  I guess poor communication is a universal problem.

August 23, 2012 - Taxi Drivers and Gifts

Tonight Cooper got the second part of his birthday dinner.  He had wanted to go to the Hard Rock Cafe, but when we arrived on his birthday back in June, we found that the restaurant was closed for renovations.  We subsituted a nearby TGIFriday's and told him we'd come back to the Hard Rock. 

Hard Rock Cafe is in Roppongi, which is also where the offices of TGA (the relocation company) are situated.  On the way to meet Drew for dinner, the kids and I stopped by TGA's offices to pick up a copy of the driver's handbook.  Drew and I have been driving on an international license since we got the car, but our licenses are good for only a year (from the time we got them last November), so we will need to get a Japanese driver's license before they expire.  Wish us luck!  (I have a friend who's studying for the test right now, and I have a feeling we're going to need all the luck we can get.)

After dinner we decided to take a taxi home.  Now, we haven't taken too many taxis, but there's been enough to have a reasonable sample of taxi drivers.  Tonight, for the first time ever, we had a talkative driver.  After I gave him our address, he complimented my Japanese, which probably meant it was not good.  Then he proceeded to ask us lots of questions, in English, such as where we were from and how long we'd been in Tokyo.  Turns out that 20 years ago, he spend 6 months traveling from north to south through the Americas. 

No birthday gifts for Cooper this time, but later that night our family got a gift.

Gifts can be a big deal in Japan.  Apparently, even the apartment management company sometimes feels the need to give a gift.  About 9:00 that evening, our doorbell rang.  There was somebody waiting with a package for us, and they had more to deliver throughout the building.

Our gift was a couple of jars of jam and a couple of boxes of tea.  Here it is:

 

Why did the apartment management company feel the need to send a gift?  They are about to start some renovations on the common areas of the building and wanted to apologize in advance for any inconvenience it might cause us.

 

 



August 22, 2012 - Bolshevik!

Nothing to do with Japan, but just a little family funny:

In the latest Madagascar movie, the Russian tiger calls "Bolshevik!" on something (meaning in the movie: bull****).  At dinner tonight, I found out my kids thought that was the actual meaning of the word.   Decided we needed to have a talk about the Russian Revolution.

I got in trouble with my daughter for posting this one.  She saw me typing it and objected, but I told her I'd already put it on Facebook.  Not very many readers of the blog, so they don't add much to the number of people who have already seen this. :)

August 19, 2012 (part 2) - The SHOES

One of the things I've noticed about Tokyo women is that they tend to dress well.  Even when they're dressed casually, it is not the same as dressing casually for me.  This tendency even carries over to when they're outside for a festival at an air base in the heat and humidity.

I amused myself at the festival, and later included the family in my game (though Cooper was somewhat uninterested), by noting the shoes some of the Japanese women were wearing.  At one point, we decided to take some pictures.  Now, we didn't do this for very long, so we missed some good ones.  Also, since we were trying not to look like crazy people, our pictures were sometimes not the best and were often from the rear.

But here is a selection of our shoe pictures:

August 19, 2012 - Friendship Festival

This past weekend Yokota Air Base held a Japanese-American Friendship Festival.  After looking at the schedule online, we decided to go on Sunday.  We left the house mid-morning, loading up on sun screen and water ahead of time.  Summer in Tokyo is HOT and HUMID, and that's coming from somebody who's lived in Houston for several years.  We had over an hour's train ride to the west of Tokyo.  Once we arrived, we joined the crowds streaming onto the base.

I'll let the kids tell you about the day.

Cooper:
We went to the Yokota Air Base for a friendship festival. There was a really cool strong man competition. They all lifted really heavy weights and the guest strongman pulled a huge bus filled with people (I was in the bus)!!!! A little bit later we listened to a Van Halen cover band. They played lots of songs and they played "Jump" last. Then a little bit later we went home.

Greer:
Hello!
So last weekend, we went to Yokota airbase with tons of American soldiers and Japanese soldiers. The first thing we did was eat because we were all starving! There was a line (separate lines) for hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and hotdogs. (So we thought-- and everyone else obviously thought the same thing too.) Mom (Mrs. Jen to some) and I got in the hot dog lane with about 10 people in line, and Dad (Mr. Drew), with cooper, got in the cheeseburger line. Both of the burger lines had about 25 people each. When we got to the front of the line you could see that you could get anything in each line! Mom, thinking that dad and cooper may have already gotten to the front of the line, decided not to get them hamburgers. When we went to find them, they still had several people in front of them. So I just sat down in a small patch of grass to eat my hotdog. I don't know if they got back in the hotdog line or stayed where they were 'cause I was hungry, so I ate.

The next thing we did was go see the StrongMan competition. There were two true strongman, one from Washington, and the other one from somewhere else in the States. They were professionals. There were people who weren't strongmen, yet, but were there to be in the competition. About 10 men competed and 1 woman. Half of them from Japan and the other half from the States. They did races where they carried 200 pounds in each hand for 60 meter dash (30 meters each way). They were timed. The female competitor had to carry (I think because they switched the weights) 100 pounds in each hand. Then they did two kinds of reps. This is when the two real strongmen actually showed off. After they finished, they brought out a bus. The real strongmen were going to pull it. And Yes, they decided to fill it with people. They were sitting, standing in the aisles, and even on the stairs! Then the first strong man pulled the bus all the way, but the second strongman said "10 more kids!" about 15 more kids piled on and about 7-10 adults came on too. He pulled the bus about 10 meters but stopped suspended above the ground by the harness attached to the bus. Basically he couldn't go any further and he didn't complete the challenge. One race I forgot to mention was the flipping race. There was a huge tire (2)  and two competitors each flipped the tire 30 meters across the asphalt. The last of the pairs to race was the woman and a Japanese man. The woman still had to flip the tire of the same weight as the rest of the competitors. At first she was lagging behind but she pulled ahead at the very end. The real strong men from the States awarded winners with trophies at the very end.

After watching the strongmen competition, we got Klondike bars from a nearby stand. Dad couldn't wait to eat some more food because we heard that they were gonna have jambalaya (those of you who know him well know he loves his southern food)! We were all hungry again from being out in the heat and walking around a lot, but we decided to wait a little bit. Next we went to look at the planes. I liked most of the American ones the best cause they painted them! One had neon splotches, another one had a shark's face, and some were painted wacky camouflage colors like blue and orange browns. Of course some were the regular camo greens but some were even cooler!

Once we had seen the small jets, we moved on the the amazing big huge aircrafts! You would get to walk inside and look around. After we had toured the smaller of the two, we went to sit in the shade of the enourmous wings of the larger one. A few minutes afterwards we decided to go get jambalaya. Right after we had walked about 20 feet, water started spraying from the fire engine! Of course Cooper and Dad decided to get WET, but Mom and I decided just to get misted by the spray that blew towards us. Way better than walking around sopping wet.

When we went back to see if they had jambalaya, they said they were out and making more. Sadly the person actually didn't know, and they weren't making anymore. We got more water and I think we had drunk about 14 bottles of water already. We ate some Mexican tacos on soft tortillas and they were good too. We bought five more bottles of water and headed home after spending 5 hours at the air base.

Thanks for reading! Greer

Hmm, Greer talks a lot about the food.  Wonder where she gets that from....

And now for some pictures:
Here's a couple from the the Strongman (and one Strongwoman) competition.  Despite what Greer thought she remembered, the female competitor did not get her tire over the finish line first in her pairing.  However, there was one male competitor who was unable to finish before the timer went off, so she for sure at least came in ahead of one. 

 

Here's Cooper running to get on the bus (can you pick him out?):

Here's one of the American planes Greer liked:

This is from inside one of the big American planes. Can you see the line formed on the left? That's to get inside the cockpit. It was a wait of a couple of hours; we were not interested. To the right you can see another line; that's for the cockpit of the other big American plane.


With one of the military personnel on the big plane:





After we disembarked from the plane:

Cooper wanted to make sure I included a shot of the whole plane:

The spray of water from a Yokota Air Base firetruck.  This was a welcome (momentary) relief from the heat.

Nothing says Japanese cuisine quite like fried Oreos:

Drew took some video of the Van Halen cover band, but I'm not sure I should bother including any of that (even if it had been a good cover band).  The funny part to us was our kids.  These are kids who like music, including rock, but they sat down on the hot, hard ground the whole time the band played.  Didn't even get up for "Jump."

 

And one final picture:

The festival was absolutely huge - the crowds were just incredible - I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. They had barrels such as in this picture all over. The truly amazing part of this

picture to me is that every time I looked in any of these barrels, they had the correct garbage in them. Yet every time I tried to set up recycling bins at things like swim meets and school events in the States, I invariably had to sort through a ton of garbage afterwards because people seemed incapable of putting their garbage in the correct bins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



August 17, 2012 - new piano teacher

Well, I'm just going to jump ahead now, going from April 9 to August.  We went to Yokota Air Base on the 19th; the kids are writing something about it and they (well, at least Greer) will want to see it in the blog.  I'll worry about filling in the gap later, but I can at least try to keep up from this point forward.


One of the things we stopped when we moved was piano lessons.  The kids had enough to do with adjusting to their new home and school (and country), so we decided to wait to start lessons back up.

Now, with the end of the summer approaching, it's time to start making some arrangements.  I had gotten the email address of a potential piano teacher from one of my friends.  The teacher's name is Eiko; she is Japanese, but she speaks excellent English and has a lot of expat students.  Eiko and I exchanged a few emails while I was in the States, and we scheduled this past Friday as a day for her to come and meet us and give the kids a trial lesson.

Eiko was very friendly, and she liked Lucy (Lucy seems like a pretty big dog to most Japanese people).  She had a good rapport with the kids, and they each enjoyed the lesson.  But here's the clincher:  she brought donuts!  Seriously, what's not to like about a teacher that brings you donuts?

Lesson two is next Friday!