Natsu no Owari

It's the end of the summer, my nerds!  You know what that means--that means the shit is starting to get real.  As I so tantalizingly alluded to in my previous post, it's been a hell of a few weeks.  The menu's running long today, so I hope you brought your appetite.  Since the last installment of this esteemed publications, the first thing I did was enjoy a 72-hour gauntlet of festivals over a long weekend in mid-September.  I'm only slightly exaggerating; our schedule was punctuated with sporadic breaks for eating and sleeping, but otherwise it was pretty much full throttle.  Let's back it up to the Friday when it all kicked off.  We had practice for the first event we'd attend, the fall festival in our town, Gosen.  The actual shindig went as follows:  Each part of town has a small float that they pull along on ropes, making stops to pay their respects to old dudes hanging out at specific landmarks along the way to the terminus of the procession, a larger shrine in the town's center.  Oh yeah, and in front of the floats are people playing flutes and small taiko drums on wheels.  So Friday night was "practice," which for me meant following the people who were actually doing stuff on our route and…not much else.  Everyone thought Carly and I were married, which was hilarious; basically if a guy and a girl are out together, they'll assume the two are an item, and that's doubly so for foreigners.  Throw in the fact that everyone gets married about two seconds after they graduate university and boom, they start to see foreigner couples errywhere.

So anyway, we walked for about an hour.  The reward for our strenuous activity was nothing other than Japanese grandpa drinking time.  (Hang on, I need to back up and say that I got to hit on the drums a bit, which was good fun.  I have a secret, unrealized love for percussion instruments, and as far as those go, taiko drums are pretty swell.)  So we had some Japanese grandpa drinking time at the house where we had originally gathered for the evening.   We sat at low tables stacked high with all manner of Japanese noms--shrimp tempura, pickled veg, kara age (basically fried chicken) and potato salad (which to my persistent amazement is much loved here).  Dominating the skyline were towering bottles of fine Japanese beer.  This, of course, was the main attraction.  At this point I should belatedly clarify that the overwhelming majority of the party ranged in age from old to older; we owed the festivities to these elderly patriarchs who had so diligently retained memory of the old ways.  So we celebrated the successful transmission of a centuries-old tradition the usual way--good food, good beer, and (inevitably) good sake.

The following evening was the fall festival for realsies.  Where our practice night had been dim and quiet, the festival proper was alive with the beating of the taiko, the streets illuminated by the floats rolling by; they weren't huge, but they seemed ponderously massive relative to the narrow streets teeming with human bodies and booths selling food and toys.  My role in all this was the very traditional, very respected position of "dude who directs traffic around our parade."  Really.  Right before we left, one of the men in our group handed me a rod much like a short, flashing lightsaber for the purpose of directing any cars near us to kindly not mow down any of our party members.  Amanda got one too, and we immediately commenced our duel.  I don't know why they saw it fit to charge us with the safety of a few dozen people, many of them young children.  Nonetheless, we proceeded on the route, quite casualty-free; we took in the sights of the festival and watch other floats go by.  At some point, I was handed a can of Asahi--and that's when I learned that the float, being pulled along mostly by small children, had a full cargo of beer.  I was stunned by the ingenuity of it all; I was basically on a traditional Japanese crawl.  Upon reaching the shrine and watching the short ceremony there--more music and dudes in the regalia of Edo-period Japan--I abruptly shifted functions.  I was handed one of the two paper lanterns mounted on bamboo poles and placed in the vanguard of our party.  This was a little more badass than my previous occupation, so I happily complied.  After wending our way through small back streets and eventually on to the main road--literally on the road, I should add--we eventually made it back to the start, where we commenced round two of Japanese grandpa drinking time.  As it is with any group I socialize with for the first time, they told me how great I was at Japanese/using chopsticks, and I talked about my interest in Japan and life in Gosen.  You can imagine that covering the same ground over and over again can get old, but the fact that my community is genuinely eager to get to know me and include me more than compensates for that.  It's pretty great.

Sunday we hit the city for, yes, some more sweet festival action--these ones being in a more modern vein, rather than the traditional shindig I had attended the previous two nights.  First, we scoped out the dance festival.  It seems like just about anyone could form a team and enter, but that's not to say that they didn't totally kick ass.  Random streets were blocked off and open spaces commandeered to accommodate participants and spectators; it really felt like the whole city was in celebration.  We moseyed from place to place watching the dances, and somewhere along the way we caught a random solo concert, maybe a dozen viewers strong.  This dude was just jamming out on acoustic guitar, so we thought we'd take a break and chill out.  My butt had barely made contact with the seat before he started calling us out in front of the audience.  "You guys aren't Japanese, huh?"  No, no we were not.  "Cool!"  We caught a few more songs, then went to talk to him when he took a break.  He was still pretty excited that some foreign nerds had shown up at his show (he actually mentioned it on his blog), and we snagged a couple of signed CDs from him.  There was a lot of reciprocal days being made right then, you guys.  Hey, if you like solo acoustic guitar without vocals, you should totally check him out right here:  http://fujita-shingo.jugem.jp/  (Fuck yes.  I was waiting for the day I could make a shameless plug on my blog.  Now this blog is major league, my nerds.)

Later in the afternoon, we dropped in on what was definitely the main attraction for the day:  the random-ass food festival.  Purveyors of all things edible came from around the prefecture to show off their goods.  After getting our bearings, I made a beeline for a coffee stand.  My rapid advance in that direction, however, was almost completely negated by the velocity at which I was blown away when I heard the coffee dudes speak.  You guys, the stand was run by a trio of Japanese who spoke what is undoubtedly the best English I have ever heard any Japanese speak; unaccented, quick and flowing.  Whereas I normally time most of my time speaking patiently in slowly-enunciated English with my teachers at school, these strange barista-cum-teacher-cum-persons of mystery spoke such fantastic English that I felt myself shifting into the same speech patterns normally reserved for use with my pals--a reaction I'd never had evoked in me speaking English with a Japanese person.  It was insane!  We learned that these guys taught English at a private school in the city; I felt like I should go and learn a thing or two about English.  Dazed, I walked off to explore the rest of the festival.

Lots of free samples!  One of the best was cubes of gelatinous mochi powdered in crushed soy, a favorite treat of mine.  At some point, I spied someone selling brownies; I literally stopped, breathed out hard, and gazed a gaze both tender and sad.  I stood still for so long I was separated from the rest of the crew.  I didn't buy any, just like I didn't purchase anything from one stand selling what they professed to be a Mexican dish; it just wouldn't be the same.  I did, however, score a sweet chicken katsu burger, which was absolutely top; everyone else had a bite of mine and went out to get their too.  It was that good, dudes.  There was also a wall of the venue dedicated entirely to sake.  To anticipate your question, yes, they too had free samples, but I threw off the haters by not imbibing.  (Who knew maturity would set on so quickly?  I feel like I need to do a Keystone out of a plastic bag to stave off impending adulthood.)  Instead, I received instruction in the basics of sake.  Here are my findings based on a conversation I had with one of the vendors:  There appear to be two main types of sake, ginjo and junmai.  A key difference between the two types is that junmai tastes more like rice, while ginjo has a fruiter flavor.  I'm sure a cursory Google search will turn up more useful information than that, but I do want to say this:  If you've ever tried sake and totally hated it, I encourage you to try it at least a couple of more times, because the different varieties and makers really do put out a diverse range of the beverage.  If the bottle's already open, then I'm probably not in a good place to judge, but I do know from the experiences I've had (as a part of my continued effort to educate myself on and integrate into Japanese culture) that, well, sometimes I get sake I hate and never want drink again, and sometimes I get something so good I don't know how anyone could dislike the stuff.  In short, go check it out sometime.

Next up was Monday.  You guys, Monday is when shit got really real.  The first night of the second iteration of the fall festival, we were assigned to help carry an omikoshi, or portable shrine, in the festival procession.  I say "miniature," but the whole thing weighed around six or seven hundred pounds!  Our team was headed by the city's superintendent, so consequently we were responsible for one of the flashiest and biggest omikoshi in the whole festival.  Before the heavy lifting began, we arrived at the superintendent's place for a quick snack, got up in traditional festival gear, and rolled out to the launch site.  I'm not going to lie, I may have been a little blasé when my friends and coworkers warned me that the omikoshi would be mega heavy; after all, these were the same people who had told us that it was too hot to watch kids on their sports day at school (which everyone else did) or that it was insane we ate rice twice in a day (which everyone else does.)  But as soon as we got into position, crouched under the poles, and hoisted it aloft for the first time, I immediately thought to myself:  "Shit."

The omikoshi was conveyed by hoisting the wooden beams sticking out of it onto our shoulders.  The main logistical issue for me was the fact that I stood a good head or so taller than most of my teammates.  I had two options:  Either sacrifice my shoulder for the greater good, or stoop down and walk like a fool.  I cycled between fire and frying pan, but damned if it wasn't a workout either way.  Gruntingly sustaining our burden aloft, we set out along the parade route to a real shrine just past the festival grounds.  Like Saturday's festival, that meant navigating through crowded streets festooned with colorful awnings, covering shops selling chicken skewers, light-up plastic katanas (I bought five), and Hello Kitty memorabilia, among many other things.  When we reached the shrine grounds, I noticed a problem:  The shrine wasn't there.  Well, it was, but it was concealed among trees…and was also situated about fifty steps of stairs above us.  Yeah.  As our team marched towards the stairway, my thought process went something like this:

"Okay, we're moving towards those stairs."

"Why aren't we turning away from those stairs?"

"Are we going up those stairs?"

"We're going up those stairs."

"Double shit."

I felt much like I imagine a doomed traveler would feel right before plunging off of Victoria Falls in a raft, only instead we were going up.  Still, exhausted as I was, I couldn't help but smile at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.  We called on a second wind to blast the omikoshi up the stairs and landed it in front of the shrine, and gratefully began our break.  Beers were passed around--it wasn't clear to me that that was the best choice of beverage given the activity, but I wasn't about to refuse the kindness of our teammates.  We socialized for a bit, and I saw a lot of students who were also in the festival.  Eventually we got back to the ceremony part:  An officiator in traditional Shinto garb first inspected our omikoshi, then opened its tiny front door to "put the gods" inside of it.  Immediately following that was our omikoshi battle.  I hate to disappoint, but it involved neither ramming others' shrines at high speeds, nor fisticuffs with opposing teams.  Rather, we picked up our omikoshi again and basically rattled and shook the hell out of it, along with plenty of yelling for good measure.  My sore shoulders begged for mercy, but were soon relieved as I was taken in by the surrounding din, huge structures of wood moving too fast, ornaments jingling and flashing in the lights, battle cries coming from every corner.  In short, it was pretty badass.  We returned the omikoshi to where we started, a sort of large garage that was packed with beer--I hadn't seen so much beer since stocking up supplies for Beer Bike.  We celebrated a day's hard work basically the same way we had the whole weekend; a few of the teams sat together on tarps laid out on the driveway, and we were treated to more light noms and beverages.  Worn down to the bone and with the workweek resuming in less than twelve hours, we excused ourselves after a little while--not without politely turning down invitations to participate Tuesday and Wednesday night.  I still don't get Japanese humor.

We did go back Tuesday night to mill around instead of participating.  One stand was selling what they called "doner kebab,"  but was really more like shawarma.  As I previously suggested, I don't exactly jump at every chance to eat non-Japanese cuisine (for now), but I was overcome with curiosity.  Frankly, I wasn't disappointed; I couldn't help but think back to Amman, where I'd had the best sharwarma of my life, but it was damned tasty nonetheless.  I also scored a sweet banana and chocolate crepe, which, for my fan club, is one of my favorite flavor combinations.

So anyway...OH MY GOD I just realized I have so much more to write about dammmnnnnnn.  Okay.  I'm gonna let all this sift through your brain while I go start the next installment.  Now I know how Tolkien felt.

NEXT TIME:  The best camping trip of all time.  The best burger of all time.  Plus fishing and drinking beers with my boss at five in the morning.

P.S.:  I realize I talked a lot about food in this particular post.  However, I'm not going to apologize because apparently, eating takes up a lot of my time.  Write what you know, nerds.