The Year of the Sheep

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Aomori Nebuta Matsuri

There could be no better ending to the Invincible Summer than a summer festival. Not just any summer festival, but one of the biggest festivals in our region, the Aomori Nebuta festival.

Waiting to start the parade

Summer festivals are some of the biggest, and loudest, festivals in Japan. There is always a lot of chanting, drums, and dancing. Last year we went to Akita for the Kanto Festival, where participants balance long bamboo poles on their backs with an offering to the gods on top. Since this was our last August in Japan, I knew I had to see the Aomori nebutas before leaving.

Taking a break & letting the crowd see the float

A nebuta is a float, often depicting a warrior figure, though there are also floats for neighborhoods and companies. The red samurais are on all kinds of products in our region. The floats are built out of paper and take almost the entire year to make.

I think this was for Aomori City because it has the aquarium with a dolphin show.

Another big part of the festival is the taiko drums and the haneto dancers. The drums keep the beat for the entire parade, and the crowd chants "Rassera" along to it. Rassera doesn't translate well to English, but it is meant to shake off the sleepiness of summer. Honestly, it sounded a lot like a personal cheer: RAH SARAH!

Taiko drums - they are LOUD!

The last big part of the Aomori Nebuta festival is the haneto dancers. Anyone can be a haneto dancer, even Americans, as long as the proper outfit is worn. Participants can either buy or rent the costumes in advance, and use a handy website, instructing them on how to put it together. We decided it would be better to take in the experience from the sidelines.

I've never had so much hat envy in my entire life.

Once the parade started dying down, we searched for something to eat. Usually festivals have a ton of food booths, but we couldn't find them at this one. We did; however, find a CoCo's Curry, aka the mothership, on the way back to the car.

How every street looks in our area.

After a lovely dinner at CoCo's, we stopped by a Lawsons for our road soda chu-hi. And yes, it is legal to have open containers in Japan, so I'm probably never going to move.

About 10 minutes away from home, we saw a man on a bicycle swerving in and out of the road. The car in front of us safely passed him, and as we were getting ready to do the same, he hit the curb and tumbled over the front of the bike. Shocked, we stopped the car and debated about what we should do.

Thankfully, we had already finished our chu-his, though not that it really mattered since our driver was sober. We approached the man and he was very disoriented. One of the girls in our group gathered his things, which were all over the road. None of us speak a lot of Japanese, but luckily one of the words our TV programming has taught us is ambulance. Thanks, AFN! So we asked him if he wanted an ambulance, or kyukyusha (sounds like Q-Q sha). He violently shook his head no, so we attempted to get a Japanese person to stop and help him.

Eventually, we got a tour bus to stop, and one of the men on board knew enough English to talk to us. He ended up calling an ambulance and the police and told us to wait. Once the police finally got there, they asked the man from the tour bus what happened. I'm not sure what he said, but the police took out a flashlight and started looking at our bumper. The bicyclist started pointing at us, and then it clicked that he told them we hit him!

Sneaky pic of them getting our info. Nice knowing ya, Anna!

Thankfully, one of the girls in the group had a Japanese co-worker she could call, so she told him what happened and he explained it to the cops. After standing on the side of the road for what felt like forever, they let us go. Such an eventful night and the perfect end to the Invincible Summer!

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Takko Town Beef & Garlic Festival

Hi friends. So can we talk about the BEST festival in all of Japan, possibly even the world? We can? I knew you'd feel that way.

That's the face of pure festival ecstasy - festistasy. 

Beef.
Garlic.
Beer.

The three pillars of what I consider my existence, melded into one glorious weekend on a ski slope of another random Japanese town. Takko Town, if you were so inclined to know. That's right my friends, the Takko Town Beef & Garlic Festival, the biggest, little festival of them all.

The 229 Dome, where all the magic happens.

Now there's something you need to know about this post:
1. All of these pictures are from last year's festival.
2. I took most of them.
3. I was heavily intoxicated.
4. They are probably the worst pictures we have ever taken at a festival.
5. #longhairdontcare

It's the reason for the season!

So now that we've been completely honest with each other, I can tell you why this is the greatest festival in all of Japan, possibly the world. I love this festival because it is a gigantic BBQ in a field. Period. There's a small stage with some Japanese cover band looking the part of the Bon Jovi song they're covering. Everyone is drinking, laughing, and enjoying the early fall season. And it couldn't be more perfect.

Standard picture of me blending into the crowd. Can you find me?!

This is the first festival Mark and I went to in Japan, and it is the only one Mark has INSISTED on going to every year that we're here.

Takko beef. This year it was completely gone by the time we got there.

I managed to stay more sober this year, but we focused way more on the grilling portion instead of taking pictures. We brought a bunch of pre-cut veggies and marinated meat. It was amazing.

Mark and our neighbor, Tapper, manning the grill. We were such n00bs.

As with any festival, there were the vendors; though this one has far fewer than any other festival we've been to.

I wish I knew what these were. 

And that's about it. Our favorite festival. No frills, just good people, great food, and stellar beer.

And the Father of the Year Award goes to...

Nightmares Take Flight

So I have been repeatedly badgered by my numerous fans (read: my brother and close friend) about when I was going to write in my blog again. I kept telling them that nothing has really been going on...or possibly nothing I found blog-worthy was happening.

Truth is, a lot has been going on. I started Crossfit and eating Paleo, but honestly, who cares to hear about that? All that needs to be said is I eat my body weight in bacon weekly, and try to embrace the suck while not throwing up during a WOD.

And eating a lot of eggs...from a vending machine. 

That should last a week.

Also, things like this have been occupying our weekends...

Jackson's first trip to the beach as an adult doggie.

They had so much fun.

And, of course, the usual grocery shopping roulette...

Going to miss the hot drinks from vending machines.

The quest for green tea Kit Kats has finally ended.

But the most notable happening has been our accidental discovery of Kabushima...or more commonly known as Seagull Island.

Seagull Island. A whole island. Of birds. My nemesis.

Thanks to a work vacation to Hawaii, I think most of those nearest and dearest to me are aware of my irrational fear of winged creatures. Not even a strong dislike...a pure, crippling fear.

I was aware of Seagull Island before this past weekend, and I knew it was in Hachinohe, a town near our home. However, I did not have the exact location of said island. So when Mark suggested we just drive around Hachinohe until the restaurant opened that we had planned on visiting, I was all in.

It all happened so suddenly. One minute we were searching for the swimming beach, the next we were pulling in to a parking lot covered in bird feces and feathers.

Mark turns to me, grin wider than his pedophile-like mustache. (I HATE Mustache March!) Gears shift to park. Heart palpitation become frequent, almost normal. Mark spots a small, covered booth near the car and gets out. He turns with that same stupid grin on his face, shaking a bag of shrimp chips.

F%$^*!

And then he opened the car door. This is what happened....

And then this movie started filming, starring me.

Mark got in the car and I thought my nightmare was over. False.

And once my heart beat got as close to normal as possible, he sprang this on me.

Keeping to his promise, he got out of the car, after rolling up my window, to feed the birds what was left.

So happy there's glass between us.

I included this one only because Mark's face is hilarious.

Emptying the bag.

Nightmares taking flight.

As for that restaurant, we never found it, so we ended up back in Misawa at the Cake House, a little cafe I've been dying to try. I think I deserved it after that afternoon.

Delicious non-paleo spaghetti. 

Banana tea! It was awesome.

Little cheesecake, fresh strawberries (which taste better in Japan), and homemade ice cream.

The take away lesson from all of this is to keep your fears hidden deep inside of you. Never let your family or friends find out. Because they're all a-holes. Also, sorry about the video quality. YouTube hates the iPhone.

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!