Football & Festivals

For Super Bowl Monday...yes, Monday, they sent a couple of NFL cheerleaders and football players to Misawa. One of the players, Niles Paul, used to play for Nebraska, so naturally we were pretty excited about it. So all day Monday, it was my office's job to escort them around Japan and show them all the crazy stuff there is to do in Japan.

I arrived at the club at 7 a.m., making sure everything was in order on our end for kick off at 8:30 a.m. On a sidenote, I can't wait until the day we get to watch football at night again. Watching football in the morning is rough. Anyway, I conducted a few Minute to Win It Games during the commercial breaks and had a flashback to my first awkward promotion at Ohana (then New Northwest) for the Super Bowl. This one had far less sex toys at it though, and went much more smoothly.

After the game, we took them all to Viking for lunch. We really lucked out with this tour because they were so excited to get out and see everything in Japan. Dealing with "celebrity" and such, you never know how they're going to react.

Ten bucks all you can eat? Hell yes!

 Viking is a habachi-style restaurant, where you pay a flat rate for 90 minutes all you can eat. This is also the same restaurant they took Mark and I for our first meal in Japan. Having lived here for over 6 months, it's a lot less jarring than it was that first time.

So we showed the players what was what (or at least what we think it is) on the buffet. They have huge bowls of marinated meat sitting in a glass case, some of which are labeled. We've gotten to the point that we can guess what kind of meat something is, just by look.

Let the grilling begin!

After Viking, we took them to Shimoda Mall, an always excellent source for Lost in Translation. We took them to the 100 yen store, which puts the American dollar store to shame because all the items are actually really good quality. And 100 yen. It's something you really have to see to understand.

We wandered around trying our best to answer their questions, mainly what was sake and what was soju. It was funny because they kept picking up bottles and asking if it was sake. I don't know, I can't read Japanese, your guess is as good as mine.

Our next stop was the Towada Snow Festival, which I was really looking forward to. I wrote a huge snow festival guide for the January Leisure Times, the monthly magazine my office publishes, and I anticipated visiting all of the festivals near Misawa after reading about them.

The festival was amazing. It was snowing like crazy the whole time we were there, which added to the romance of the whole event.

The entrance into the festival.

The snow stage.

The festival had a bunch of little buildings, completely made out of snow. Two of them were ice bars, with the bar and stools made out of snow, and the drinks served in glasses made out of ice.

The more lounge-like of the two bars.

Ice cups!

Mark and I escorted the players, which meant taking pictures of them in each building next to the ice sculptures.

Darrel & Niles on the snow stage. The character on the left is a samurai, which is common to see throughout Japan.

Darrel with the festival sign. Pretty sure we were supposed to pay for this, but there was a big language barrier.

Me and Darrel.

One of the many ice sculptures in the buildings.

As we were making our way around all the buildings, we came across an ice sculpture broken and laying on the ground. We all froze in our tracks, unsure of what to do. There was no one nearby, so we decided it was best not to even go in that building and look like the stupid Americans who ruined the sculpture.

So we hide in the chapel. No one will find us there.

The best squatty potty story ever:

After making our way around the entire festival, Darrel informs us that he needs to use the restroom...like NOW. (Yakiniku will do that to you if you aren't used to it.)

Luckily there were bathrooms right behind the chapel we had just exited, as seen to the left in the picture. He goes in and we wander around close by with Niles, talking Nebraska football with him.

Finally, Darrel comes back with this huge grin on his face.

"Dude, I destroyed that place. And it was a hole in the ground."

A squatty potty for the unfamiliar. They happen in Japan quite a bit.

So we asked him what he did.

(Laughing) "Dude, I stripped down, butt ass naked, and took a huge dump."

Naturally, we asked him why he took his shirt off. He told us he didn't want to risk it. Squatty potties are a little difficult when you aren't used to them, but I've never known anyone to take off all their clothes.

Now that he was comfortable, we hit up the food booths.

Gigantic vat of ramen.

The biggest freaking bacon ever!

Darrel and Mark got the bacon on a stick. Darrel got cheese torched on his.

Niles got the fish on the stick. Too brave for me.

I played it safe with a strawberry crepe. It was amazing!

After the food, we went to the wine booth, where you could purchase a shot glass sized glass for ¥500 and get unlimited refills on hot wine. It was amazing. Every time we got it filled, we took a couple of steps to the side, and then got right back in line. And that, my friends, is probably why they only make it shot glass sized.

The night ended with fireworks and a snowy drive back to Misawa. It was a long but awesome day. I'm so glad we got to go to the snow festival!