From yosakoi dancing in Wakayama to fireworks in Otsu, and giant temples and ferriswheels...

So I meant to update my blog earlier in the week, but I got a little sidetracked.  After purchasing my yukata last Friday night, I had the urge to find one more.  Last Saturday I went back to Kokawa, the town where I watched people run up the streets with lantern lit floats.  The yukata shop had them marked 50% off for the festival, but I was a week late for the sale.  However, the store owner was very friendly and really likes America, so I was given an even better deal and got to pick out the fabric to have one made.  Look for it the next post when we go to the Kinokawa festival for my last night in Wakayama prefecture.

Last Sunday night Tomo and her friends invited me to Wakayama city for the yosakoi dancing.  They had a food tent set up there like they did when I met them outside the athletic club shortly after I moved to Iwade.  This dance festival was amazing to watch.  It was sort of like a Japanese cheerleading competition, as it was described to me.  On both Saturday and Sunday the competition held on a stage set up next to Wakayama castle.  Then there was also the parade of dancing going up the main street.

And here are a few of the videos I got of the perfomances.  Three from the stage and one from the street.  The third video on stage is my favorite because it was the most colorful.  And the daughter of a new friend is in the parade video, last row second from the right.

I think the best part of visiting all the festivals this summer is the food.  It is quite different from what we see at our fairs and carnivals in America.  Here I found a grilled fish on a stick, and it was very tasty.  The fish is Ayu, and it is a freshwater fish.  I learned a little more about the fish this weekend after I went back to Kokawa to pick up my yukata that was being made.  The store owner asked if I had ever had ayu-sushi, so we went to the restaurant next door for me to try it.  Turns out when the fish come from the mountain streams their bones are so soft that it is okay to eat them, but when they are farmed their bones are far too brittle to eat.  

Last Monday afternoon the professor and I drove to Otsu where he has a home on Biwa lake.  Every year at this time there is the Biwakoko fireworks display.  I was very excited to go because people in the lab have been talking about it all summer, and it was a great opportunity for me to dress in my yukata.  Thankfully I wasn't the only one, or I'd have felt a little out of place.

We had an amazing mean, and the professor asked that I fix something as well.  Since back home on the 4th we usually grill hamburgers and hotdogs, I decided to make some hamburgers, since I had yet to see a really good one in Japan.  It was my first time making them from scratch, but I found an amazing recipe, I didn't have a grill but the electric skillet worked just fine, and everyone enjoyed them. There were 9 or 10 or us, I made 12 and none remained :)

I managed to get one good picture of the fireworks, but do check out the video below.  The show was amazing, 10,000 shots fired from two floating decks on the lake lasting almost an hour.  We had a perfect view from their apartment.  I chose this one because of the fireworks in the shape of smileys, hearts, and many other things, we initially thought it was the finale but there was still more to see!

I'd seen pictures of this before around the lab, but it was funny to see it at the professor's house.

The next morning I got some nice pictures from the balcony, so it is clear to see we one of the best views for the show.

I also took a nice walk along the water and found some other nice sites to take pictures of.

A friend I made at the hostel in Kyoto was traveling in the Wakayama area, so I offered to show him the countryside in Iwade.  Wednesday late afternoon we set out to find Negoro temple.  I am actually living in the Negoro area, so it was nice to finally see this.  The temple grounds were huge and it is absolutely beautiful.  There are waterfalls, ponds, gardens, rock-gardens, and numerous different buildings.  This temple has quite the history as it has been around since it was built in 1087!  There is a very large 2 story wooden pagoda, one of the few things to survive a great fire in 1585 started by the Shogun Hideyoshi Toyotomi.  It is also the resting place of Kogyo-Daishi, known as the restorer of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, who resided there from 1132 until his death in 1143.  Below are only some of many pictures I took on the grounds.  Notice the scary looking rabbit in the 4th picture that looks like maybe it belongs with Johnny Depp in Alice in Wonderland :)  Not sure the meaning of it.  It is a fountain, that one would use to purify themselves before going any further, and the water is coming out of it's mouth.  But it just seemed out of place, though it is the year of the rabbit.

It was also on this day that I was visited by Jehovah Witnesses at my apartment in Japan.  They were two sweet older Japanese women, and I had no idea what they were trying to say.  Then they asked where I was from and pulled out a pamphlet.  As soon as I saw it I realized what was going on.  I tried my hardest to get out of the conversation, but they were such nice ladies I didn't want to be rude.

I finally got a few decent pictures of me working.  This is for you Klara since I know you check my blog periodically :)  In the first I am talking with Maeno-san preparing to take the pressure cell out of the NMR spectrometer (it would be my first time getting to do so).  In the second I almost have it all the way out of the magnet.  And the third it is loaded with a new sample and we are getting ready to put it back in, behind me is the pressure pump and guage we use to apply pressure to the sample while the pressure cell is in the magnet.

The last thing I will share in this entry is this weekend's mini adventures.  Saturday I went back to Kokawa to pick up my yukata and I had the ayu-sushi as I mentioned earlier.  The yukata turned out absolutely beautiful.  The benefit of having it made for me was it is partially lined in the the shoulders and rear, the parts I guess that would wear the most from movement.  I'll get a picture of it next time when we go to the Kinokawa festival.

Yesterday I took a little adventure to Rinkutown, a city in Osaka prefecture right on Osaka bay.  It is very close to the Kansai airport and has the fashion outlet mall and one of the largest ferris-wheels in the area (somewhere close to 85meters high).  My mission was to find myself a jinbei set (I mentioned these kimono like pajamas in the Kokawa entry) as well as a yukata for Jesse, since we will go to at least one festival here together.

He said he wanted one with dragons on it.  I had found one in my town that was a decent prospect, but it had these heart shaped leaves on it that just looked a little too feminine.  While I was waiting for my okonomiyaki lunch (so delicious), I strolled around the shops near the food court.  I found a small store selling yukata, and sure enough there was a black one with red dragons!

After lunch I found my jinbei, both missions accomplished!  It is so comfortable, I may need to get another one before I leave.  Then I jumped on the ferris-wheel to see the sights of the city and the bay.

I wandered around the outlet mall for a bit, then took a little stroll down to the beach before heading back to the train station.

I made it back home to relax, have a nice bath, and lounge in my new jinbei :)  This is my last week of work in Iwade, the time has passed too quickly.  But Jesse arrives on Saturday (yay!!!), so there are still many more adventures for me to write about (about 3 and a half weeks worth!)

My first yukata experience...

Friday night my friend Tomo took me to a shopping mall nearby. The mall was huge!  It has been a while since I've gone to such a shopping mall.  I am always seeing fabulous clothing in the stores of Japan; however, more often than not it would be way out my price range.  So instead of trendy clothing, I decided to put my shopping money towards my very own yukata.  

I had no idea how difficult a decision it would turn out to be.  They were all sooo beautiful.  We went to one store and I found one I liked, but since the store was towards the entrance we decided to see what else we could find because we could always go back.  At the department store there were even more to choose from.  Each time I thought I found the one, I would find another I liked even better.  But I kept thinking about the yukata at the first store.  Since I wasn't actually trying them on, it seemed okay that we just took pictures of me holding them up so it would be easier to remember what they looked like for comparison.

We went back to the first store, and I couldn't quite remember which one it was.  I did however find 3 prospects, and was able to try them on and get a few pictures for comparison.

First there was the black with white and silver flowers and little bits of magenta in the flowers...

The second yukata I tried on is the one I chose, so I will show it last.  The third was a black with blue, teal, and silver flowers also with hints of magenta.  This one we tried with two different obi.

But the winner was the black with pink, white and purple flowers and lots of green leaves, as well as silver outlines of flowers.  The obi is magenta on one side and silver on the other, and as shown in all the pictures there are several ways it can be worn to feature one color, the other or both equally.

Monday night we are heading to Otsu for the big fireworks display on Biwa Lake.  The professor has a home there as well, and takes the lab members each year.  From what I hear it is huge, 10,000 shots will be fired over the lake!  This might make up for missing July 4th back home (except for not getting to hang out at the timber with the Stines, of course)! Perhaps it will be an opportunity for me to wear my new yukata :)

Today was a good day.  My neighbor works at one of the hospitals in the area that serves both cities of Iwade and Kinokawa and today they put on a health fair.  There were all sorts of demonstrations and booths.  The EAD and CPR demonstration was great to watch.  Although, it was in Japanese so I really didn't know what they were saying.  The most I got from it was for CPR they use 2 chest compressions to 3 rescue breaths.  From my days of Life Guard certification and white water rafting, I have seen that ratio change from 15 compressions:2 breaths to 5 compressions:1 breath.  Does anyone know what it currently is in the States?  We also got a tour of the hospital.  I learned they are known for there gastroenterology research and care.  

First they showed us the deluxe patient room.  It is hard to tell with the curtain, but it had a very nice private bathroom and seemed much larger than most hospital rooms I have visited, it also had a kithenette and lounge area.  This room goes for about 16,000 yen per day ($240), but a standard room is around 6300 yen per day ($80).

Next they took us to see one of their ultrasound machines.  They gave a demonstration showing the abdomen of another hospital employee.

We also saw a demonstration in the endoscopy lab.

The last instrumentation was their mammography unit.  There was no demonstration for this one, of course, though they explained the procedure and showed us some films.

Our very last stop was the basement. There are 2 black cylinders between the concrete in the left and right of the picture below.  There are 80 of these spread out underneath the hospital to reduce the shock from earthquakes.  From the diagrams they showed us, those cylinders look like they are flexible and allow the ground to move from side to side to absorbing the impact with little disruption to the building above.

After the hospital fair I met with a volunteer Japanese tutor for my first lesson.  A little late considering I only have 2 weeks left in Iwade (so hard to believe).   However, better late than never.  It was quite fun. We just went over some survival Japanese, and the hiragana characters, which I taught myself before coming.  After the lesson we had some coffee and cake with the owner of the little cafe we were at.  The owner, her daughter and I played a card game with the hiragana flashcards.  My tutor laid them all out on the table.  She had an accompanying deck, one card with several words for each character.  She would read the words and the first to find the card with the right character got to take the card.  Believe it or not, I actually won!  The score was me:28, the daughter:17, and the cafe owner:4.  My tutor was very proud :)  I will not have another lesson until the end of my last week here in Iwade, as she is going home for the Obon holiday.  But she did give me plenty of homework to work on, and I told her I would try to get all the Katakana characters before we meet again.