As the title reads, The Sun is metaphorically Setting, that is, my time in Japan is rapidly disappearing on me. Yesterday, Thursday the 19th of January, marked two weeks until I depart Ebina for Tokyo. TWO WEEKS! With such little time remaining, I have a very busy couple of weeks ahead, but that will have to wait for another blog. In the meantime, over the past two weeks, I've been up to a couple of things, namely finishing my winter holidays, and after a seemingly endless series of festivals and events, I went to the final New Years Celebration, two weeks after New Years Day. They really know how to draw things out over here, don't they?
My final day of the Winter Holidays was spent in a city I was yet to visit, but had wanted to go to before I left-Kawasaki. While it was only a day trip, I feel I had a decent look around, even if a large portion of that was looking through 8 storey electronics stores (I went with my classmate Genga, who is a bit of an electronics geek).
A shopping plaza adjacent to Kawasaki Station
I wish we had store names like this in NZ
The South American Music scene in Kawasaki is raging
The day I visited Kawasaki, the 9th of January, is significant in Japan as being the day when all people who turned 20 in the past year become adults in Japanese culture. To celebrate this, they don their Kimono, have their hair done elaborately (more so the girls) and go to a temple/shrine to pray for a healthy and pleasant adult life. So as we were walking through Kawasaki city centre, we saw dozens and dozens of young, new adults in Kimono, one of the stark constrasts we often associate with Japan, that is the modern, technological streets, flash cars, ultra new fashions, etc, and then someone walking down the street in traditional wooden sandals and wearing a silk Kimono. I didn't grab any photos of them in Kimono, didn't want to seem like any more of a tourist than I already was, but I'm sure you all know what a Kimono looks like.
In Kawasaki is a temple, famous in Japan as being very big and old, called Kawasaki Daishi. Daishi is particularly popular during New Years celebrations, the whole temple complez containing a multitude of smaller, sub temples, and when I said to Genga 'we're going to Kawasaki Daishi', all we had to do was follow the trail of kimono.
Arriving at the temple, crowds were such that security personnel had formed various cordons, one way zones, blockades, etc. It reminded me of the raucaus when there is a car crash, people in high visibility jackets with walkie talkies and big hats waving, shouting and generally blowing everything out of proportion. Following their incessant gestures, we walked down a street, various vendors shouting out for us (and everyone else) to buy their whatever it was they were selling, most of which fell on deaf ears. We had a temple to go to, dammit!
This doesn't even begin to capture the mass of people we'd encounter soon
The lantern by the entrance to the temple
The temple isn't on fire, rather it's from the incense burner at the front of the temple
The Japanese cup their hands and draw some of the incense smoke over their heads, in the belief it will make them smarter, and for good luck. Me, always looking to get better luck, did the same, but aas yet I haven't noticed any difference. Though it did stink out my jacket with the smell of smoke.
The smoke is so thick, it clouds out the temple
A smaller incense burning shrine
Exactly what it looks like. A dog wearing a Kimono.
There is some serious smoking going on in temples in Japan
I was surprised when Genga told me he had never before done Hatsumode, that is the praying at a temple/shrine in the New Years for a happy and healthy new year, so I, the foreigner who 10 days earlier had no idea how Hatsumode worked, had to teach a Japanese person. So I walked him up to the temple, told him to flick a coin into the tray, clap three times, bow once, and clap again, all the while hoping for a good year. We then went to the various stalls selling good luck charms for 2012, and seemingly to make up for his lack of attendance in his 17 years, he bought himself a demon killing arrow, two good luck charms, one for success at school and the other for financial success, and one Daruma, a Japanese charm shaped like a head. When you buy one, you draw one eye on it, and make a wish. When the wish comes true, you write in the other eye, after which you consecrate it to a holy fire in a temple or shrine, as a way of returning it to the spirit world as thanks for helping your wish come to realisation.
An as yet unfulfilled Daruma
By this time the day was beginning to wane, so we gradually made our way to the exit, sampling the shishoku (free samples) when we could, meandering through the stalls but not buying anything, though I did spy this one rather unique stall. As everything for sale there promotes luck, I wonder what this is for?
For preventing baldness perhaps?
And with that, my Winter Holiday in Japan for 2011/2012 came to an end.
The first week of school was fairly normal, unremarkable even. It wasn't until Saturday that anything of note happened, and that was the Dondoyaki festival. The Dondoyaki festival stems from ancient times in Japan when people would sacrifice things to the spirit world by consecrating them to a giant flame. They burn all the things they used in the New Years celebrations, plus the good luck charms they got from the previous New Years. So this year, charms celebrating the Year of the Ram were burnt, and next year it will be the Dragon that is burnt and sent back to the spirit realm.
As a part of this festival, which ends the New Years celebrations, people make dango (rice balls) which they grill over the bonfire on long sticks. So when Midori's art children came Saturday morning, everyone was rolling balls of rice paste and sticking them onto a branch, ready for grilling.
While they could be eaten as they were from the stick, they only had a slightly carbonized plain rice flavour to them, I much preferred them with the sweet red bean anko paste back home. By burning our New Years materials, we further increased our good luck for the year, so no I can say that my luck must truly be stupendously fantasmagorical, as I have:
Done Hatsumode (praying at a temple/shrine for a good year) Five Times
Got a demon/bad luck killing arrow
Got a charm for academic success
Doused myself in the incense smoke at Kawasaki Daishi temple
Caught a Dango thrown by a Sumo
Burnt my New Years materials in a holy flame
Gotten 2 Daikichi (big luck) omikuji (fortune)
I figure with all that, 12 activities in total, my luck must be 12 times better than it was going to be before hand. I'm gonna be unstoppable this year.
Sunday was the last official AFS Shonan Chapter meeting of our program, and so the 5 of us went to Fujisawa for our 'pre departure orientation', covering culture shock, homesickness etc. Personally I didn't think it was all that necessary, but afterwards when we had our farewell party, to which we had all invited friends, speeches all round, lots of food, photos etc. All good fun.
AFS Shonan Chapter, 2011-2012 program
Thinking that it could well be the last time the five of us were together in Japan, we decided to gather as many of our friends who attended the party with us, and we headed out to Karaoke! We went to the same place that Camille, Fernanda, Olivia and I went to in late October, but as we had this time 11 people rather than 4, we were given 'preferential treatment'. Instead of a fairly small room with one TV screen, two mikes, a few seats and a floor dominated by a table, we had a room that had seating for at least 30 people, 4 television screens, 5 mikes, a mirror ball, and best of all, a stage! Plus, something we didn't realise in October, there are dressups which you are free to use in the lobby, something we took full advantage of, especially Olivia, as being of a height similar to a Japanese person, she could fit one costume none of us had any hope in hell of managing.
Olivia not only pulled off the Pink Power Ranger look, she also pulled it on, I had no hope of doing that.
Had to be content with the pink afro look
So a lot of fun was had, the all you can drink drink bar and all you can eat icecream stations got a fair bit of use, and after singing a variety of songs including the works of Lady Gaga, AKB48, The Rasmus, Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull, we called it a night.
A rather short blog this time, however over the next couple of weeks I have a LOT of things planned, everything I've wanted to do but haven't yet gotten around to doing are being crammed into these last two weeks, and as next week I have Monday and Tuesday as half days, and Wednesday and Thursday off school, it's perfect for getting out there and doing Japan! But I'll save that for another blog.
A rather short blog this time, however over the next couple of weeks I have a LOT of things planned, everything I've wanted to do but haven't yet gotten around to doing are being crammed into these last two weeks, and as next week I have Monday and Tuesday as half days, and Wednesday and Thursday off school, it's perfect for getting out there and doing Japan! But I'll save that for another blog.
In another note, at school last week a peculiar thing happened with the clock in my classroom. I only managed to catch the last bit of it with my camera, but watch and see if you can work out what happened. The movie was taken at 10.57, and I have not played with it in any way.
We time travelled!
Speaking of time travel, the next two weeks will feel like time travel, they'll go by so quickly, and before I know it I'll be on a plane headed back to Aotearoa New Zealand!
But there are still many adventures to be had before then, so come back and check out the blog soon!
Sayonara for now from Under the Kanagawan Sun,
Toroi :)
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