Spring Flowers and a Trip to Kochi

As I mentioned last time, I've been a slacker with regard to this blog lately. So this is part 2 of My Effort to Get Caught Up - aka 2014 spring flower viewing and a trip to Kochi.

We start with hanami - cherry blossom viewing. You may remember that last year I went to Shinjuku Gyoen, which is the more family-friendly of the major cherry blossom viewing options, since there is not alcohol allowed in the park. The other famous place for hanami is Ueno Park, which is about 133 acres, containing museums and famous shrines and all sorts of stuff. Ueno Park is also where everybody goes to sit under the cherry trees during hanami and drink lots of alcohol.  


It was not what I expected, in that it wasn't everybody picnicking on a large grassy space (like at Shinjuku Gyoen). Rather, everybody marked off a piece of concrete (or dirt), put down their picnic plastic (it looks like plastic, so I don't want to mislead people into thinking of it as a "blanket") and start eating and drinking. There is everything from people just hanging out drinking a beer to groups who've taken the time to set up a picnic area - complete with small table and tons of food and alcohol. Convenience stores (conbinis) near the park STOCK UP on beer and chuhi (not sure of the correct spelling on that one…) and set up cash registers out on the sidewalk to accommodate the huge crowds of people who are heading into Ueno Park to drink under the cherry trees. And everybody is there, from little babies being held up close to the cherry blossoms to get their pictures taken to cosplay groups like these guys:

And then there were the pets.

Yes, those are cats with bows on, hanging out on top of a sign. They are not strays. And they are surrounded by people looking up at them and saying how cute they are and taking their picture. The cats probably think they are merely receiving the worship that is due them, and they seem rather bored with it all.

We bought drinks at the conbini and then just walked around. It was very interesting, and also very pretty.  

There was also a section set up with festival stuff.

Which leads me to a tangent - Japanese put a lot of food on sticks for festivals! There's mochi on a stick:

And cucumbers on a stick: 

I also saw little fish on a stick and corn on the cob on a stick. And at a wisteria festival that I went to during Golden Week, there were other sea creatures on sticks.

I just find that interesting.  

Speaking of the wisteria festival, I finally went to Kameido Tenjin Shrine, which is in Tokyo near the Skytree and is famous for its wisteria and its traditional red bridges. I went during Golden Week, and although the festival was still happening - complete with singers in bright red suits - 

...the type of wisteria that they have there was done.  

But it was very pretty, and it looks like it is gorgeous when the wisteria is blooming, so I'll have to go earlier next year. And the azaleas were looking great!

This was just a pretty mural in the subway station on my way to the shrine.

Kochi castle

In April, I also went down to Kochi prefecture for a work trip. Kochi is the most mountainous of the Japanese prefectures and is located on Shikoku island. When a surplus of rice became a huge problem in Japan, a lot of people in Kochi put greenhouses on top of their tiny rice paddies. Kochi is now one of the largest producers of vegetables (eggplants, green peppers, etc.) in Japan. It's interesting to drive along, look at the tiny divisions of land, and see green house after green house with the occasional rice paddy thrown in.

Rice planting was just starting down there, and this nice farmer let me drive the tractor! (This one is pretty large by Japanese standards.) 

Unfortunately for him, he has some rather crooked rows in the middle of his field now, but he assured me that it was not a problem. 

Kochi is also famous for rice terraces (since the region is so mountainous). The area in this picture is about a month away from planting, but it was lovely. As you can imagine, those tiny little fields aren't terribly profitable, but there are ecological reasons to keep them going, so they are trying to promote them as a tourist attraction.

The area is also famous for citrus - specifically yuzu. Yuzu is becoming rather big in the U.S. now; I saw references to it in two of my Bon Appetit magazines in the last year. The town of Umaji has a lot of yuzu. The local JA (farmers' cooperative) representative saw that rice wasn't profitable in that area - which is in the middle of the mountains - so he spent years creating a market for yuzu and encouraging farmers to plant yuzu trees on their rice paddies. Now they have a production facility that creates juices and candies and marmalade and lotions/cosmetics, and they're developing even more products.  They have some shops that they sell to, and they sell over the internet. They even make a profit some years! It was very encouraging. In my opinion, it is exactly this sort of creativity and determination that will save Japanese agriculture.

We spent the night at a ryokan in Umaji. It was a lovely place. Pretty much everything that the ryokan served for dinner and breakfast was local - fish from the river, greens from the mountain - and came with a story. It was right before Children's Day (the one that celebrates the sons in the family), so all of the windsocks were out.

All told, it was a really interesting trip. And to top it off, the local KitKat is a citrus flavor that is quite tasty! (I think I've mentioned it before, but there are many different flavors of KitKat in Japan, with specific flavors only found in certain locations. I hear there is a KitKat store in Tokyo that has all of the flavors. I need to visit it!)

And now it's June, and the relocation season has begun. Yesterday, the Embassy had its Sayonara Party for the people who are leaving post this summer. It's hard to believe that I'm already half way through my tour, but it's true. I have a lot of traveling that I need to start getting serious about if it's going to get done before I leave. If you are planning to come visit me, start making those plans soon! There's less than two years left for visitors (unless you want to stay in a hotel when you come - because things will be chaotic and very busy when I start getting ready to leave), and it goes by fast.

Spring Festivals

I've been a total slacker about my blog this spring. Sorry! It's basically been a fairly normal spring, but there have been a few adventures. In order to not make this the world's longest post, I've decided to split it into two. Today, you get to hear about the festivals I went to.


In early March, I went on a kimono tour. The Nakai neighborhood in Tokyo has a long history - going back to the 1600s - associated with the dying of cloth for kimonos. In March, there was a sort of festival where the canal was filled with banners of dyed fabric. Unfortunately for me, the day I went was rainy, they couldn't hang the silk cloth - only the cotton - and so the canal wasn't full of the colorful banners. But it was still interesting.

In addition to the canal, shops all over the neighborhood hung banners outside.

And there was an exhibition that showed kimonos and banners made from silk painted by masters.

Some of the most expensive of these kimonos are made from silk that was hand woven. The hanging below shows the 38 different steps that go into creating the final design in the bottom right corner. It kind of explains why some of these kimonos cost about the same as a house.

In early April, I went to two festivals. The first was a fertility festival called Kanamara Matsuri (aka, the Festival of the Iron Phallus). Apparently, this festival sprang from the fact that, back in the Edo period, the ladies of the night would go to this shrine to pray for protection. Eventually, the festival came to celebrate fertility, protection in childbirth, and protection from sexually transmitted diseases. 

In an effort to try to keep this family friendly, I'm only including a couple pictures. The main part of the festival is when transvestites (or simply men dressed as women, depending on which website you look at) carry the portable shrine shaped like a giant pink phallus around the neighborhood. What I do not understand is why this shrine is named Elizabeth. Seriously. It's the Elizabeth Mikoshi. I don't understand.

Everything revolves around fertility. The shrine's wood plaques that people write their hopes and prayers on. The candies (both male and female). Everything. This festival seemed to be equal parts young Japanese going crazy, foreigners wanting to see this amazing spectacle, and Japanese grandparents in kimonos enjoying the festival. So now I've seen a Japanese grandmother licking a large (maybe 6 inches) candy (ref note on shape above). It was an experience!

The following weekend, I went to Narita (the town, not the airport) to see the taiko festival. I love taiko. And I love that Japan loves cute things, and so the banner for the festival was an airplane (for the international airport) holding taiko sticks.

Because I was participating in an exhibition on the embassy compound to demonstrate my very limited nihon jujutsu skills, I was only able to go to the concert at the shrine, which was the main event of the festival. The shrine had actually been on my to-see list, as I'd heard it was very nice. And it was! 

One of the gates of the shrine.

And of course, the taiko performance was excellent and very dramatic, performed on the steps of the shrine as the sun set.

The following week, I participated in the IMAF 36th Annual Martial Arts Exhibition to help demonstrate nihon jujutsu. While I wasn't perfect, I didn't humiliate myself in demonstrating the basic moves, so that was a positive. And one of the girls who was there saw it and has joined our class, so that's cool!

So those are all of my festivals/events of the spring. Next post - flowers! 

Yuki Matsuri

I finally made it to the Sapporo Snow Festival! I heard that, along with a snow festival in Norway, it's one of the largest snow festivals in the world. It was certainly impressive! The festival has nearly 200 snow and ice sculptures at three sites, plus ice skating, snow boarding and ski jumping, sledding, slides, etc. I managed to take nearly 600 pictures during my 2 1/2 days there, so needless to say, this post will have a few more than my usual 10 pictures. But I tried to contain myself! If you want to see some other pictures, CNN has a gallery of pics from the festival.  

part of Odori Park, as seen from the tv tower

"Momotaru" (medium sculpture)

The main site is Odori Park, where snow and ice sculptures, plus food vendors and all sorts of other fun stuff, take up 12 blocks. The snow festival started on Wednesday, February 5. I arrived Monday evening, and although the large sculptures were blocked off, two of the four medium sculptures and all of the small sculptures could be viewed. Some people were putting finishing touches on a few of the small sculptures, which was interesting to see. 

Detail from Momotaru

By the following day, almost all of the sculptures were available for viewing, and tons of small children were going around in their school groups to see everything. The sculptures were all very impressive, with amazing detail. In addition to a bust of Masahiro Tanaka, the pitcher for the Rakuten Eagles (the baseball team that won the Japan League last Fall) who has now been signed by the Yankees for a huge amount of money, there were famous and beloved cartoon characters and various other cute, fun and inspiring things.

Did I mention that it snowed most of the time I was in Sapporo?  A lovely powdery snow, but it meant that after a while, the sculptures looked like this (below) and had to be swept off.

There were various and assorted characters scattered throughout the festival…

And there were even special cans of Coke in the vending machines!

We certainly can't forget the LARGE snow sculptures, including this one celebrating the 2014 Olympics!

"Winter Sports Paradise, Hokkaido!"

"be Ponkickies" (a tv show that has run for 40 years) 

"Sultan Abdul Samad Building"

And of course, everything gets lit up at night!

"Tomb of Itmad-ud-Daula (India)"

…And sometimes they have illumination shows!

…Or concerts!

"Traditional and Modern Taiwan" ice sculpture

In addition to the large ice sculpture above, there were also a few more ice sculptures in Odori Park, including these:

"Palace of the Heart"

But the main site for ice sculptures was a few blocks away at the Susukino Ice Festival, where ice sculptures were displayed for several blocks down the middle of the street.

At the recommendation of a colleague who grew up in Sapporo, I took a train out to the port town of Otaru for an afternoon. When the port was functioning, there was a whole industry associated with making glass floats. However, when the port shut down, they redirected their efforts towards stained glass and such. So now the town has developed the area around the canal, and it is full of places to buy beautiful glass work, plus a lovely clock/music box place, a Venetian glass museum and other fun stuff. 

And just for kicks, one final picture - this one with the NHK character holding an Olympic medal near the tv tower (and ice skating rink).  Happy Yuki Matsuri!

Happy Year of the Horse

Happy New Year, everybody! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays. I had a nice relaxing holiday season. December 23 is the Emperor's Birthday, so I took off work on the 24th and made a 5-day weekend out of it.  

I started the weekend going to see the lights at Midtown again. They were very pretty. The colorful tower in the background of this picture is Tokyo Tower, which also had a "2020" on it, in honor of Tokyo winning its bid to be the site of the 2020 Olympics. Combined with the fact that Japanese cuisine was just declared a UNESCO intangible world heritage, people in Japan are pretty happy right now. 

On that Saturday, I started cooking. I made two types of cookies, some peppermint fudge, pecan pie, apple sauce, cranberry sauce, cornbread stuffing, sweet potato casserole, and turkey. When combined with the salad that some friends brought, it was just about enough food for me and the five people I had over for dinner! So that was very nice.

One of the buildings on the Imperial Palace Grounds

For New Years, I took another two days of leave - making another 5-day weekend - so that I could see what I missed while I was the Embassy duty officer last year. January 2nd was the Emperor's New Year's Greeting, one of two days in the year when the public can enter the Imperial Palace Grounds and see the Emperor. The Emperor, his wife, and members of the Imperial Family make five appearances throughout the day, when the Emperor gives his New Year's Greeting.

It was a beautiful day, and I was able to see the Imperial Palace and catch a glimpse of the Imperial Family when they appeared - not to mention the tons of people waving Japanese flags - so it was fun.

After the Greeting, some friends and I went to Ginza for something to eat, where I saw these fun posters under the train tracks.

On Martin Luther King Jr's Day, a few colleagues from work and I went skiing in Niigata. There's a really nice deal where you can get a shinkansen ticket and a one-day ski pass for only about $84. I've never been downhill skiing (only cross-country), but I figured that if I was ever to try, Japan would be a good place. So I rented the ski equipment (including a children's helmet, since that was the only size small enough for my head), and the guys each kindly spent a portion of their day trying to teach me to ski. At first, the silly people thought I should just head down the bunny hill, and they could just give me tips. HAHAHA. I very quickly lost control. They very quickly gave up yelling "V!" and switched to yelling "FALL!". Meanwhile, I spent some time trying to figure out how best to fall and decided upon flat on my face. (I later chose different approaches to falling, but this was a first effort, after all.) After I assessed body parts and they worried that I wasn't moving and maybe they'd broken me already, we decided that a better teaching method might be to show me how to make turns so that I could go slowly back and forth down the mountain.

Part of the bunny hill - I swear, it's steeper than it looks! 

At first, I could not figure out how to turn right. But eventually I was able to make a turn without involving a snow drift, and I could slowly, slowly work my way back and forth across the bunny hill. I even made it down a couple times without falling at all! I may have looked like a little old lady working my way slowly down the hill while 5-year old children zipped by me - and really, that's the age to start death-defying sports like this, not when you're approaching 40 - but I did it! 

Of course, after lunch, the snowboarders were out and busy falling down my bunny hill. My first run after lunch, I had to turn a little earlier than I would have liked in order to avoid a group of fallen snowboarders, which meant that I started going faster and feeling like I was going to lose control. So I carefully thought about how I could turn again, but then I'd be going even faster, and there wasn't a big fluffy snow bank on the other side, but there was a big fluffy snow bank on this side, so I just skied straight into the snow bank. It was a big snow bank. I was so far down in that snow, I had to take my skis off to get out. But it was soft!

So after a couple hours of learning to ski in the morning, lunch and then another hour or so in the afternoon, and about the time I ran over a snowboarder (or more precisely, the back of his snowboard) while yelling "SUMIMASEN!" ["sorry"], I agreed that it was time to take a break and get some hot chocolate. 

After skiing, we made a quick stop at an onsen, and then went to a little Japanese restaurant that had the sumo tournament playing on a small tv, the family cat wandering about, and lots of small food dishes and local sake. It was a very fun day! I'm hoping to try it again around President's Day. 

On a closing note, below is a funny sign that I saw in the train station when leaving to head back to Tokyo. I suspect they meant to say "Until Next Time" or "Come Again" or some similar sort of well-wishing. But this made me laugh.