Japan Internship

By Tyffany Price

Higashi Naruse Village, Japan

September 18th, 2006

Sorry to take so long to write again. School started a month ago, and I've been largely busy teaching at many schools around the area and also visiting pre-schools and kid centers to accustom kids to speaking english. This experience has been incredibly invaluable for me. Also, August is what I would dub party month in Japan, so I was consistantly going to festivals and what not.

After sennin shugyo, I went to tanabata, a festival with huge streamers suspended from star-remeniscent looking balls that are hung in the air and stretched across many streets. It was accompanied by women dancers, and edoru, which are beautiful traditional paintings that are lit up with a light behind it so they can be viewed in the dark. Then shortly after was O-Bon, the buddhist festival for the appreciation of the departed. There was a special dance in Yuzawa city that my host family took me to see. This picture is from that particular night.

The ledge that you see here in the top has many taiko drummers and shakuhachi players. Incidently, I had started attending taiko practice in Higashi Naruse Village shortly before this. Taiko is very fun, and now that I have been doing in for nearly a month, I am starting to feel confident in the songs I have learned. I practice with the sennin taiko group, the adult group that practices to play infront of massive festivals and lots of people as almost a profession. They are very serious about it. Its awesome to be a part of it, even though I largely feel like I suck at rhythm. There is a lot to be said about the Obon time, I enjoyed watching, eating, and walking alot. By the way, this was like five days long.
I went to a taiko festival maybe two weeks ago in Yokote. Very cool, lots of taiko, all day long. kids, adults, beginners, and advanced members. One group had this absolutely massive drum, the likes I had never before witnessed, and they didn't have drumsticks to play this drum. No, they had full on baseball bats to beat it with, one guy on each side. It was loud to say the least.

I went to a firework festival last night with my new host family. OMG!!! I think the firework artists were attempting to set the sky on fire. They damn near accomplished it too. The show was two hours long, fireworks being launched across a half a kilometer area, all at once sometimes. They had fireworks I had never seen before, and a new innovation came last month that they incorporated into the show. Blue fireworks. I watched a program last month on fireworks that said that for a long time, people could not figure out a chemisty to turn fireworks from blue to anyother colour, and that blue colour really isn't all that attractive either. Last month, science did it. Made fireworks that could change from a brillant blue to any other chemically created colour. So they used these kind of fireworks a bit in the show. But there were some just amazing fireworks, I'm still kind of blown away by it.

I have taken a few trips to different places around the prefecture as well, most notedly Oga and Akita city. I had some quite coveted food at these places, and I will only describe these dishes as being quite likely the most delicious things to ever be. Another another food related note; I love sashimi and sushi. I have waited a very long time to try Ootoro. Ootoro is fatty tuna. It is incredibly expensive and I had no expectation to be able to eat it while I was here in Japan. But last week the Takahashi Seiichi family totally took me to a place where I was able to try Ootoro for the first time. It was singularly the best thing I ever put in my mouth, and ever likely to have put in my mouth. It was an exquisite taste, never to be topped by any other type of sushi or sashimi ever. My tongue began to water as soon as it was in front of me, first in anticipation, then by the smell. Once tasted, my mind fried and I could only smile and scream, "Mayuuuuu!"

I moved to another host family house, and it is part of a buddhist temple. I participated in a buddhist memorial yesterday, and that was a lot of fun. After the memorial the entire family went out to a mountain park called Jeunesse and we ate a 13 course lunch. There was no way I could eat everything. My stomach hurt really bad after I finished what I did eat, and I had to take a walk. We also went to karaoke, and afterwards to the onsen (hot spring). I went to the last firework festival of the season on Sunday in Imonoko. Totally awesome. They had fireworks going off to music.

I'd have to say that my life here is the best possible thing ever! I am eager to bring all my friends to Japan to visit. My camera memory stick is packed with pictures, and I can't take anymore until I go to a photoshop and have them put on a cd. My head is packed with information and event memories that I can't wait to share. Take it easy style.

Tyffany

"I wanna live my life in superlatives. When you're extraordinary, you gotta do extraordinary things!"

October 5th, 2006
Japan is awesome. My visa expires soon, and I feel overwhelmingly sad about that. I really enjoy living in akita prefecture and I have many friends here now. I have many things to do in the next couple of weeks, notably on Sunday I have a taiko performance that I have many butterflies for. I have been going to practice everyday this week to ensure my not sucking on that day when the group performs.

I get to take a trip to Hiraizumi next week, and that should be entirely too cool. And I will spend some time in Akita city too. Yay!  Tokyo too!

"I wanna live my life in superlatives. When you're extraordinary, you gotta do exraordinary things!"