All the Japanese schools hold something called Undokai each year. This is "sports day." The stores sell caps that are red on one side and white on the other and the school is divided into red and white teams to compete in various things such as races, dancing, and an even where one child is held on the shoulders of two other children and the child on top tries to push another child on top of someone's shoulders off onto the ground. There is also an even where the children race giant bouncy balls--maybe 8 or 9 feet in diameter. Sam's team, the white team, won this year and he was very happy. I have several videos of undokai to post.
Monday, June 13, 2011
And more...
For a while now yellow basket has been the bane of my existence. Every time I drag the laundry down the stairs to the dryer, there is yellow basket, blocking my way. I hate yellow basket.
But, I hate dirty white basket even more. On numerous occasions dirty white basket has appeared after I put my laundry in the dryer and I come down to find that dirty white basket has shoved my (sometimes still damp) laundry into my little basket and put its contents in the dryer. I thought that maybe I was going down too late (past my 30 minute mark), but on Saturday I caught dirty white basket's owner taking my laundry out of the dryer when I still had 5 minutes left on the clock. I said, "Sumimasen....anata was warui des" or "Excuse me, you are bad." Dirty white basket's owner, a crumply, dirty old lady just looked at me. Ugh. I will not miss sharing a dryer!
From Julie's koto recital. In the photo Sam, Hana, Yukio, and Yukio's wife (none of us ever remember her name!!!). Hana means flower.
Our friend Mary gave us "ringside" box seats to the last Sumo tournament. Afterward, Sam got to take photos with several sumo wrestlers and even got one to autograph his program!
Last night was the Fulbright reception at the American Embassy--well, at the Ambassador's home. This is a photo from the back yard. This building before WWII was the Embassy. Now it is where the ambassador, Roos, lives.
More recent activities
Graham graduated 8th grade. The school had a nice little graduation ceremony and afterward a catered lunch with champagne for the parents and juices for the kids. One of Graham's classmates' father is Mario Frittoli, a famous chef here in Tokyo and he provided all the food and drinks for free.
Graham and his girlfriend, Sam hold up their diplomas.
We went to the Ginza last weekend to see an art show where our friend, Takehito Yanaka, had one of his paintings. On the way, we saw this cat on top of the sign and a million Japanese people taking its picture. It was so funny that I wanted a picture of the people taking pictures of the cat. Cats seem to be very popular in Japan. At shrines and temples sometimes you happen across people sitting there with a cat or two and they always attract a huge crowd. Sid is always trying to trick me at restaurants by telling me what to say in Japanese. Sometimes he will tell me the words for "Now I am sick to my stomach," but generally he tries to get me to ask for some weird meat. Early on, his thing was to tell me to ask for "Neko Niku, okudasai." That means, "Cat meat, please." I am glad that Japan is a first world country or I might very well have eaten cat (neko) or dog (enu) niku (mean) a few times.
I will miss the wax models showing you what you can order when we leave here. I wonder how foreign visitors to America survive at all without these helpful little things!
Fulbright arranged a tour of the Diet (Japanese parliament) for us yesterday. It was great. We got to see all around the building and we also got to meet with a Japanese congressional representative. Sid was so happy because she gave him a signed poster of herself that says "Japanese Democratic Party" on it. He has wanted a Japanese Democratic Party poster since we got here!
School kids also touring the Diet. We think they were from the provinces because they were so excited to see a bunch of westerners!
In the Diet.
Hall in the Diet. It is a beautiful building.
Sid in front of the Diet. While we were there we also got to eat at the Diet cafeteria. Sid and I had tonkatsu. But, Sid told everyone later that we ate "diet food."
Outside of the Diet building.
This is Prime Minister Kan's home. Something important was going on as you can see by the number of black government cars parked in front. Black is definitely the power color here. Everyone dresses in black and important people drive (or are driven in) black cars. At Akasaka Mitsuke we saw a huge number of Yakusa (mob) cars parked when a big Yakusa meeting was taking place there. Anyway, lots of important meetings are being held by Kan now as the government tries to figure out what to do about the Fukushima mess. We still get reports of contaminated food and water from quite far away--even further from Fukushima than Tokyo. We are all very samishi (sad) to leave Tokyo, but will also be a little relieved to be further away from the radiation and irradiated produce.
We also toured the Supreme Court and got to meet one of the 15 Supreme Court Justices. This is a big skylight thing over one of the petty courts.
Our friend Beth sitting in one of the justice's seats.
Sid sitting in what we think is the Chief Justice's seat.
Looking very "judgmental."
My turn to judge.
Recent activities
Well, part of why I haven't posted is that we stay so busy here that it is tough to download all of the photos! But now my camera is so full that I have to dump it and so I have new pictures of our recent activities. :)
As many of you know, Sid lived in Gifu about 20 years ago and taught English there for a year. So, we made a pilgrimage to his old stomping ground to see Gifu City. At one time, Gifu was the center of fashion in Japan. Long before that, it was a capital of sorts and the saying was that if you wanted to control Japan you had to control Gifu. In recent years, though, Gifu has taken a little bit of a hit economically and many of the fashion houses have closed along with the stores and shops. In general, the Japanese are not reproducing at high enough rates to keep the population up, but you really notice this more in Gifu than in Tokyo. Also, I don't recall seeing very many westerners in Gifu even though it was Ukai season.
Gifu:
Japanese Manholes often tell the story of the place. In Tokyo they feature a flower that is the symbol of the emperor. In Gifu, they feature cormorants like this one because of the Ukai fishing. Ukai fishing is where the guys on boats have fire to lure the fish to the surface of the river and then they use cormorants (birds) to catch the fish.
The boys on the way to Gifu Castle. This is the river where the Ukai fishing takes place.
A nice old man and his dog waving up to us. We were very popular in Gifu as there are so few westerners. Everyone who knew any English at all wanted to practice on us! This old man just waved. :)
I believe that Graham is dressed as a woman here and Sam as the warrior who fought to claim Japan and headquartered himself in Gifu.
Near Gifu Castle (on top of one of the mountains that surround Gifu City) is something called Squirrel Park where you can pay a nominal fee and be given some food to attract the squirrels so that you can pet them.
Gifu Castle. Ruined and rebuilt several times, this is the latest incarnation of Gifu Castle. It is beautiful, especially at night when it is lit up and looks like a white fairy castle on top of the mountain. We ate at a wonderful little restaurant on top of the mountain looking down on the river and the city. Sid had one of his favorites, a Gifu specialty that is unavailable in Tokyo, miso katsu. Katsu is fried pork cutlet. Miso is the type of sauce used in virtually everything in Gifu.
The boys climb the rocks while we shout at them to get down so they don't tumble off the mountain.
In Gifu we completed our tour of the Daibutsu. We had seen the ones at Kamakura and Kyoto. This one was very peaceful and quiet. We were all tired and could have taken a nap in the cool shed housing the Buddha.
For Ukai fishing you can go out on little boats to watch the fisherman. The fishing takes place at night, so you can take supper or a snack with you out on the river. This is just before we got on our boat.
The boats for viewing Ukai head out.
Ukai fisherman Sid.
Ukai boatman Sam.
Thwarted Ukai fisherman Graham.
A viewing boat with the boatmen in view. They use poles to move the boats around--much like you might see in some places along the Mississippi River. This particular river, though, is quite shallow. Some special people were actually carried from the shore to the boats by the boatmen who waded in the shallow water to get them and deposit them.
A good view of the boatmen.
Another good view of a boatman.
When is this thing gonna start?
Soon.
It's hard to see but here is one of the fishing boats. You can see the fire used to lure the fish and if you look carefully at the bottom center of the picture you can see some of cormorant floating on the water waiting to fish.
Sparks from the fire.
The strings leading down into the water are attached to the cormorant which are below the surface scooping up fish.
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