Fall Festival

Every 15th of October, the Japanese gather in many towns to celebrate and welcome the coming of Autumn. In the northern territories of Japan, the leaves have already begun to change color, and the weather is starting to dry out and get cool. This holiday festival is hosted by the various cities' shrines in conjunction with various homes and businesses who sponsor parade floats. A few days before this festival began, I noticed that there were long ropes tied up just above head level and running the length of the streets in town. The ropes had jaggedly cut pieces of paper hanging from them. I asked around a bit and finally learned from one of the ALTs that these are a representation of waterfalls. The water pours down on your head to purify you. It is a common practice in Japan to pour water over the head of a god's statue as a way of requesting a blessing or good fortune. In the shopping district here in Ito, there are seven gods of good fortune hidden at various spots among the shops with little fountains and a ladle for each god's head. it's one of the many fun little walking tours you can take here in Ito.

So, anyway, on October 15th, we got in the car and drove about 45 minutes from Ito to a small town on the west coast of the Izu Peninsula called Toi. Toi, we had heard, was hosting a wonderfully large festival. It was a beautiful day, and the scenery on the way there was great, but when we arrived, there wasn't much of a festival going on. There were only 3 food booths, and no kids' games or anything. There was a large stage set up with a Taiko Drum section, so we watch a little bit of the shows. Here are a couple of videos from that:

Here is a bit of the Taiko drummers in action.

Here is a traditional Autumnal dance performed by one of the ladies' social clubs of Toi. I'm not sure what all of this symbolizes, but it is beautiful to watch.

Since there wasn't much going on at this festival, we decided to take in Toi's real claim to fame: The World's Largest Flower Clock and acupressure walkway. This was a bit like some of the spots in America--largest ball of twine, tallest cheese wheel, etc. The acupressure walkway was about 150 feet of sheer foot agony. Supposedly, if you make it all the way around (barefoot), you will increase your health and well being by a huge amount. I think the relief of no longer having jagged rocks poking into the bottoms of my feet was what they intended me to interpret as a general feeling of health and well-being.
Here are a couple of photos:

A bit disappointed by the meager faire at the Toi festival, we hopped back in the car and drove to Ito, which we had heard was not even celebrating very much. We were sorely mistaken and should have stayed in Ito all day! When we arrived back in Ito at about 5 pm, there were booths set up all over the central area of town selling okonomiyaki, squid balls, shrimp, yakitori, corn dogs, candies, toys, and all kinds of stuff. People were everywhere, and everyone was already drunk (everyone over 20, that is). Then we saw the parade floats. Before you scroll down to the picture, try to imagine the streets of Ito at dusk. Japanese people everywhere lines the streets, swaying back and forth to hold tight on their three sheets to the wind. Many are laughing, sharing a toast, or just catching up on old times with friends they haven't seen in a while. There is music everywhere, the smells of festival food, and excitement fill the air, and then the most beautiful procession of parade floats begin to pass by.
This Float is a typical parade float for festivals. It is entirely made of carved and inlaid wood, and covered in lanterns that I later found out bear the names of various sponsors for the float. I was in awe of the sight of these floats. It was like something out of a dream. An American Expat who lives in Usami was there and laughed at my response to what he called a very heavy commercial advertisement. He was right, it turns out that many of the lanterns have names for local hotels and tourist spots in Ito.

Here is a shot of the procession coming down the street toward us. The people on the floats are from various families and businesses, and they waved and shouted greetings to their friends and neighbors as they passed by. It was all great fun. Each group passed by a table at which were seated judges, but I am unsure as to the criterion for judgment. There were dancers like the ladies you saw earlier, and a number of other acts. The next thing we saw was the "portable" shrines. I put portable in quotation marks because these shrines are portable in the sense that they are not bolted to the ground, but it takes anywhere from 30 to 150 people to carry these things down the streets. Here's a video I shot of one of the shrines making its way down the street. I apologize for the sideways view. One of the reasons I have taken so long to post this is because i was looking for a video editor that could fix my error. I thought that the camera would automatically recognize "up" like it does for the photographs, but alas, no. At any rate, here's the clip:


Later in the evening, I got some footage of a portable shrine carried exclusively by children.

Later in the evening, I heard a bustle and strange noises and laughing coming from the crowd, so I nudged my way onto the street to see what was happening. Unfortunately, I didn't have the video camera ready for what I saw. At first, I thought it was a bunch of geisha pulling a parade float, but as they got closer, I realized it was about 25 Japanese men in drag, highly intoxicated, and pulling the heavy wooden parade float behind them in a flat-out run. Here's the only picture I got of them before they sped past us. It was a riot. Everyone enjoyed laughing at their friends, neighbors, and relatives dressed in drag.

So, that about wraps it up for the fall festival. The next big festival will be New Year's Eve, and i should have some good fireworks shots from that. Sayonara for now!

Playstation 3--Akihabara--11-11-06--Long Narrative PART 1

***Before I get into this, I would like to take a moment to praise and thank Lisa for joining me in the authoring of this blog. You can see her entries with the tagline "posted by Risa Sensei" at the bottom.***

Our friend, Kessler, back in Jacksonville, desperately wanted to have a Playstation 3. As it turns out, the release date for the Japanese PS3 is a week before the US release, so if I could manage to get one here, Kessler would have it in his hands a few days before anyone in the U.S. So, last week, I took a recon trip to Tokyo on the Shinkansen (which incidentally, is *the way* to travel in Japan, and riding it makes me wonder why we haven't gotten with the program in the high speed train business in the U.S.). Here are a couple clips of the Shink (as we Gaijin call it) in action:


But I digress. Where was I, ah yes, the reconnaissance mission. I took the metro to Akihabara and found three possible places where I could pick up a PS3 on opening day. I asked everyone I could find who spoke English what the best strategy was, and they all said one of two things which I will paraphrase here:
1- I don't know, We have no information, etc.
2- Get ready to wait on line!

This trip was further clouded by the news that Sony was planning only to release 80,000 PS3s in Japan. Still, I decided that opening day for a game console as solid as this one seems to be would be an experience I shouldn't miss while I have the chance to see it in Japan. A week later, yesterday, I went back to Tokyo and checked into a ryokan in Asakusa. Ryokan are traditional Japanese hotels with a futon (pronounced "ff_tone," not "foo-tawn"--the underscore means that the sound is either diminished or absent) and tatami (no accent on the second syllable--so instead of "ta-taa-mee," it's "tata-mee") floors. I checked into the ryokan at about 4pm, and took a brief rest in the room. I had walked from Akihabara (Ah-K_ha-ba-ra") to Asakusa ("Ah-sah-k_sa")--about 40 minutes. Since the trains stop at midnight and don't start until 5am, My plan was to wake up at about 3 am and walk back to Akihabara so I could be at the front of the line. At about 5 pm, I decided to go grab a bite to eat. While I was out, I thought I would check by Yodobashi Akiba, the electronics store where I thought the chances were the best for getting a PS3, and see what was cooking there. I had checked a few of the fan-boy blogs and they said that the Japanese were not yet lining up in most places, and by the way they were written, the blogs seemed to suggest that this PS3 launch was no big deal for the Japanese. They were either mistaken, or intentionally misleading. When I exited the metro station in Akihabara outside Yodobashi Akiba, there was already a line of over 100 people at 6pm. The PS3 was slated for to begin selling at 7 am the next day, so I checked with the people waiting to make sure they were waiting for the PS3. Upon hearing confirmation of my fears, I uttered several expletives under my breath. The words of the hotel concierge echoed back to me, "If I wanted a PS3," he had said, "I would go to Akihabara tonight." Damn it! I rushed back down the stairs into the metro, flew over to the ticket kiosk and hopped back on a train to get to Asakusa. On my way back to the ryokan, I stopped at Family Mart and began to stock up on supplies, whisking them quickly off the shelves: pringles, 4 canned coffee drinks, 3 beers (by the way, there is no open container law here, and tall-boy cans are de riguer street gear for the partier), Pocky chocolate snacks (mmm), 3 onigiri (stuffed rice balls with a nori seaweed wrapper) a sushi bento, and a V8 for vitamins. I paid for the all-nighter supplies and ran back to the ryokan, where I snatched up my backpack, stuffed the supplies inside, filled up a water bottle, and ran back downstairs to check out. I wished I had stayed in Akihabara and seen the line developing so that I could've saved the 5000 Yen for the Ryokan. At any rate, it was nearing 6:30 by the time I raced out of the hotel back to Asakusa's Ginza Line Station. I hopped the Ginza line train. The two stops to Ueno station and subsequent transfer to the Hibiya line for Akihabara (another two stops) seemed to take forever. I stopped by the bathroom one last time before heading out into the Tokyo night to find the end of what I knew was going to be a long line. Check out Part 2 of the story HERE.

Playstation 3--Akihabara--11-11-06--Long Narrative PART 2

Link to Part ONE
The line was now a snaking entity that began at the entrance to Yodobashi Akiba and wrapped around the metro entrance to end on the street corner half a block away. My heart sank, but since I had made a decisive move by checking out of the hotel, I figured I would tough it out. I think I should mention here that Tokyo is the safest city I have ever been in, which is really saying something given its enormity. I have seen people plop down for a nap in public areas with little fear of someone swiping their bags. The Police here are good at what they do, but they are a bit like the Maytag Repairman, and spend a great deal of time helping people with directions due to the dearth of real crime in the city.

At any rate, I hopped into line with little hope of coming out of Yodobashi Akiba with a PS3, and almost immediately, a security guard from the store (I thought he was a policeman at first, but then I noticed he had no pistol and the initials S.G. were embroidered above his badge, which was also embroidered on his crisply ironed shirt) began to raise his voice at me in a barrage of incomprehensible Japanese. I understood, "You...this...no! Why...you...here?" As you can see, my Japanese is improving, as I would have understood none of it when I first arrived in Japan. I responded, "pu-re-su-te-shyo-n-su-ri." He replied loudly, "This...no...you...no!" I responded, "Wakarimasen," and turned toward the others in front of me in line. The guard laughed when I said I didn't understand and said, "Wakarimasen! Ha ha ha!" He then began to verbally accost three more gentlemen who had now joined the line behind me. I watched them respond to the guard and did as they did, namely, stare off into space away from the guard and act like you didn't know he was talking to you when he taps you on the shoulder. Luckily for us, about 30 people showed up at the back of the line behind us just as he began to really let this other guy have it. The guard now began haranguing the people behind us. It wasn't long before the orders changed, because he switched from what I found out was "You are not allowed to line up here," to "Please move aside and don't block the sidewalk."

At this point, there were about 10 security guards walking around shouting for people to stand out of the way. I watched traffic go by on the street, and saw people gawking at us. Oh, great, I thought, I am going to have to camp out on this street corner tonight! Strangely enough, I was wrong, because the line began to move, and quickly so. We walked about 20 meters toward the store. I began to feel excited, as I thought perhaps the store had decided to open its doors early. Then I realized that ten more guards had begun to move the line up ahead so that it did not block the metro entrance.

I stood with the three fellows nearest me and tried to strike up a conversation, me in broken Japanese, they in broken English. When you say "Eigo o hanashimasu ka? (do you speak English)" to someone and he responds "Choto, choto, (a little, a little)" be prepared for choto to mean "not at all." So I broke out the Pringles and my dictionary and tried to make some allies in the struggle for a PS3. The guys around me were gemu-otaku (gamer fans). It turned out they were my age, and had been playing video games since way back. For those of you who don't know, Otaku can mean simply, "fanatic" or it can mean "nerd without a life whose only ambition is to be immersed in something inane." There are Anime-otaku all over Akihabara, some of whom dress up as their favorite characters. There are Otaku for every pastime in Japan, and last night, the streets were filled with gemu-otaku.

The line we were in was moved a few more times so that we now faced the street where we started and could sit down. I shot the breeze with the people around me as best I could for an hour or so, when, suddenly, the line began to move. Only it was the back of the line that was moving, and people were now running around to the front entrance of Yodobashi Akiba. My new otaku friends motioned for me to join them, so I grabbed my backpack and tried to haul ass behind the others. We turned right to pass under the railroad tracks and a crowd of about 600 people now met the longest line of bicycles parked on a sidewalk that I have ever seen. Of course, gemu otaku not being athletically inclined, they ran right into them, causing a huge ruckus, and I got to see the beginning of the bicycle domino course they had created. At this point, the crowd turned right and converged in front of the store.

I was pushed and carried through the doorway, security guards screaming at us the whole time. I had to ditch the half-eaten can of Pringles, as my hands were full with the dictionary and water bottle. Once I was carried to the escalator, I was able to put them away. The crowd, now about 800 strong pushed its way up six flights of escalators to where the PS3 display was. Security guards screaming the whole time to get out. Last minute shoppers gasped, gawked and laughed at the tide of 800 people now passing by them. I still don't know why the crowd ran into the store like that, but my guess is that someone started a rumor that it was on sale at that moment.

Once we were "escorted" out of the store as well as 800 people can be escorted by 20 security guards, we were formed into a line facing the south entrance to the store. At this point, I was separated from my otaku friends and I had to stand next to a Chinese man with horrible breath (who also spoke pretty good English). We were packed into the small corridor and told not to block it, so we were lined up about 6 abreast in the hallway and everybody's ass was up against someone else's pelvis. We stood there like sardines for about 45 minutes before the guards began to split the lines into two separate queues. At this point, I was pushed into the girl in front of me and had to make my apologies. It turned out hat she spoke English, and we became quick friends. Her name is Cathy, and her boyfriend's name is Takeshi. They were very nice, and we began to share stories, as we figured we would be standing close to each other for quite some time. Here is a picture of the line from where we stood.

After the store closed, the employees came out to help the security guards organize the crowd. They lined up surrounding each of the two masses of people and linked hands so that people would not run back and forth between lines. I still felt as if at any moment they would send most of us home and say that they only had 10 PS3s, so don't bother waiting. At about ten o'clock, things got really serious. The two lines were moved to the front (east) entrance, and then we were marched down into the 4th basement floor of the parking garage. They lined us up 4 abreast and gave each of us a ticket with a number on it. You can imagine how I felt when I got mine:

Seven hundred and fifty fucking six!? There's no way I'm getting this thing!

Next, they changed us from 4 abreast lines to single file lines and corralled us into the parking garage, where we all were relieved for a place to sit. I cracked open a beer, and ate my sushi. Takeshi went to look for food, but they weren't letting anyone leave the garage, so all he could fins was a drink machine. So, I gave him one of my onigiri. After a couple beers, and a 45 minute wait on line to use the bathroom (hey at least they had bathrooms!), I was feeling tired, so I rolled up my sweatshirt for a pillow and tried to catch forty winks on the parking garage floor.

Here's a shot of the inside of the garage:

Sleep was elusive, but I managed to doze for about an hour. I woke up at about 3 am, and watched Cathy and Takeshi play Pokemon on their Nintendo DS for a while.

At about 5:30, the guards and employees told us all to stand up and get back in our original lines by ticket number. Then, I saw two employees come out with bags of another type of card. Finally Cathy heard someone talking, and translated that they would be queuing us up for entry into the store. We were to go around a corner in the garage and exchange our tickets for what she said was a ticket that guaranteed you a chance to buy a PS3. I began to get excited, but my excitement was tempered by the fact that there were 755 people in front of me. The line oozed along, flight upon flight of people rounded the corner in front of us. Then it happened, our line began to move.

I began to smile as I rounded the corner, as I noticed they still had a lot of the new tickets left. The employees handed me a blue bordered ticket and said happily, "Roku-ju giga!" I looked down at the ticket and understood that they were telling me I had access to the 60GB hard drive PS3--the top of the line model. WOW! I was still skeptical about whether I would actually be holding one of those babies in my hands come opening time, but seeing the new ticket brightened my spirits a lot.

It also looked like a bunch of people before us had opted for he 20 GB machine, because I was now number 728! I began to really appreciate how they had run this operation. It started out very chaotic, but by the end I realized that the Japanese had this thing down to a science. The crowd was the most polite and good-natured crowd I had ever found myself in. There was pushing at the beginning, but it wasn't angry pushing. I never feared for my safety. At one point, I thought I was being pick-pocketed, but I looked down and noticed it was just someone's umbrella pushing against my hip. After that, I never felt worried about the type of people I had been thrown in with. At 6:45, the mass of people in front of us began to be moved to the elevators, and the crowd slowly shrank as people were transported to the first floor. I made it to the elevator with Cathy and Takeshi at about 8:00.

I was full of joy when the elevator doors opened, and there were smiling clerks motioning me toward the counter. They signed me up for a Yodobashi points card that gave me a 10% discount, and I approached the next empty cashier's counter. A beautiful black shopping bag full of electronic goodness was placed in front of me, and they showed me a list of games to choose from. I picked "Ridge Racer," "Gundam," and a Japanese RPG called "Genshu" or something. I paid around 90,000 Yen for everything, and then walked to the exit. It had begun raining, so they gave us all little plastic bags to put on our shopping bags. It was all very efficient, and I am glad I went through it. I walked across the street to Kinko's/FedEx and sent the new Playstation 3 to Kessler. If all goes well, he'll have it in the US about 4 days before its release there.

UPDATE--Kessler has received the PS3, and is setting it up in his house as I am writing this.

The Human Tsunami

As we were following the clues for the scavenger hunt, we found ourselves in an area of Tokyo called Shibuya. Immediately we knew something was going on. There was an electrifying buzz of human activity around the place. People were waiting anxiously for something, but what?! I could hardly stand the suspense when it happened. The flood gates opened, the dam broke, the human tsunami hit. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people all of a sudden poured in toward the ten of us, cameras and camera phones in hand, running and screaming like someone were giving away free sushi! It all happed so fast, I couldn’t even turn the camera on! Apparently there is some popular Japanese TV show called Kisarazu Cat’s Eye and the five very handsome young male stars were making an appearance in Shibuya near Tower Records. It was hysteria! Girls screaming and crying. Suddenly the proper and reserved Japanese (mostly women) morphed into a vicious, uninhibited mob! The whole thing lasted about 2 minutes. The five guys walked down the stairs and into a waiting van, and off they went. So there I was in the midst of this momentous moment in Japanese history, and not even a picture to show for it! But I do have a shot of the famous intersection outside Shibuya station where thousands of people cross the streat each time the light changes.

Akihabara “Costume Shop”

After wandering though the Circuit Citys And Best Buys of Tokyo, I turned my attention to finding a Halloween costume. We noticed some “characters” on the street who pointed us into what we thought was the right direction. Watch as Paul demonstrates is mastery of the Japanese language and culture:



Following their instructions, we came to a rather large building and, sure enough, in the 8th storey window there were costumes. Eager to see if they had anything to fit us Westerners, we headed into the building and up to the 8th floor. As the elevator doors opened, I realized we had definitely stumbled into something quite different than we anticipated. The costumes, French maid, cheerleader, nurse, school girl, all seemed to fit a certain, how shall I say…theme. Upon closer inspection, I realized either one of two things 1) the manufactures of these outfits are disgustingly cheap and scrimp on material or 2) these outfits are see-through! Yes, we had inadvertently stumbled into one of Tokyo’s many sex shops. Maybe this is where they were hiding all the technology! Embarrassed and disappointed (Take your minds out of the gutter—Disappointed that we still hadn’t found a costume), we left to continue our search. It does make you wonder about the “characters” in the video… After hours of fruitless shopping, I decided I would simply wear the Minnie Mouse ears, nose, tail, and gloves I had found in the apartment and Paul would be the ever popular “Big Western Guy in Jeans and a T-shirt”. I think the true art of a Halloween costume is not in how much money you spend, but in how people react to you. Case in point: The old knife-through-the-head-band. It’s surprising, funny, gruesome…in a word-classic. I had more fun with that one scary accessory than I did with the whole hunt. Here are a couple of videos of the fun we had with this prank:



Katie tries to get a laugh out of poor Phuc, but he seems intently concerned with her health.



Melody Stealing the spotlight from the Harajuku Cos Play Girls
It might not work, so you can watch it HERE.

The hunt itself was difficult. I think our group was a little too big and people had different ideas of how they wanted to attempt it. Honestly, I didn’t care about the hunt. I just wanted an excuse to go to Tokyo, have some guidance as to some good places to see, and hang out with my friends. I was happy with the day. I got to see some really cool areas of Tokyo.

Our Trip to Tokyo

On October 27th, Paul and I journeyed to the capital of Japan to take part in a Tokyo Halloween scavenger hunt hosted by a charity called Pepy-Ride for the JET members. This was to be our first big weekend trip since Paul’s arrival so I took “nenkyu,” Japanese for a vacation day, on Friday so we could extend it a bit. We left Ito at about 10 a.m. and reached Tokyo by noon. It really is so close! The people on the hunt arranged for us to stay at the Sakura Hotel. It is a hostel/discount hotel which is very sparce, but clean, which is all that really matters. We checked in then tightened up our walking shoes and set out to explore.
We first stopped and got some lunch at a supermarket close to the hotel. Supermarkets and convenience stores here all have bentos, or boxed lunches available all the time. It is made daily and ranges from sushi to sandwiches, from onigiri to ramen. It’s pretty cool. We at our lunch on the street corner (really no benches near our hotel), then walked to the Imperial Palace.
My Lonely Planet guide says that the gardens of the Imperial Palace are some of the most beautiful in the world. Unfortunately, it is closed on Fridays! Oh well. With Tokyo being so close, I know we will be able to see the gardens before we head back to the states. This picture is the moat around the Palace grounds.

After being denied at the Palace, we jumped on the Tokyo Metro and headed for Akihabara, a.k.a. “Electronics Town" (see picture below). Before I get into the adventures of Akihabara, let me just say that Tokyo has a fabulous mass transit system. Not only is it EXTREMELY convenient, but for a city of over 8 million, it is unbelievably clean. It is a testament to the respectful culture of Japan.
Anywho, back to Akihabara. We set out looking for a place that sells video games. Our friend Kessler back in Jacksonville had asked Paul to find him a new video game console that was being released in Japan. While Paul was fixated on video games, I was keeping my eyes open for a costume shop for the Halloween Scavenger Hunt the next day. This area is pretty amazing in that it is store after store of electronics. I mean literally, blocks of electronics stores. They all basically sell the same things, but it was still pretty cool. I have to admit though, I thought there would be more weird technology. The stuff we saw in Akihabara was normal, i.e. Cameras, i-pods, video cameras, etc. I had always had an idea in my mind that Tokyo would be filled with amazing gadgets like a toothbrush that plucks your eyebrows or a device that clasps a woman’s bra as it massages her back. But alas, I have seen nothing of the sort.

Here are some shots of Akihabara's video game arcades:

This is a 10 person linked soccer game at the Sega arcade. On the next floor, hey had a 10 person linked Yugioh quest rpg. The table tops in front of the people playing the game are sensitive to the magneticly imbedded Yugioh cards and the players can use them in the video game.

This is a guitar player video game with an actual guitar attached to it. It was featured in the movie "Lost in Translation."