Snow and Fertility (read: Penis) Festival

I stayed up way too late the other night. A friend in a Town right next to my village, actually separating my two villages, invited me to come to a snow festival. The festival was to take place on top of a mountain in a village called Niino, which had been assimilated into his larger town of Anan. Niino's snow festival is known throughout Japan (or at least Nagano) and even occupies a slot on the top "1000" or "100" Cultural Events in Japan. That sounds like a really imressive list to be on, except for the fact that they love making lists here. "The 100 Most Famous Foods," "The 50 Most Significant Artists," "The Top 100 Rock Formations on This 50 Meter Stretch of Road." There are lots. But seeing as I'm a little more excited about festivals than rocks, I decided to go.

Left: People praying. Right: Little girl praying

Niino is in the mountains, bitterly cold (for Southern Nagano) and their festival is crazy. Essentially, the whole day is spent preparing for the appearance of Kame- Sama. Kame sama is sort of like a mountain god. So the people pray to him, and for him to bless them with a good crop and fertility for the coming year. There are all sorts of coincedences that can work to your advantage at the festival. If there does, in fact, happen to be snow during the snow festival, that means there will be a bumper crop (Lots of food). If you are conceived during the festival, you're going to be very lucky. This, in particular, used to have special significance in the past when the festival had some more Dionysian aspects to it which have disappeared in recent, more conservative times.

Schooling the kid on the good old days. Lighting the Fires with a boat on a string.

When we got up to the top of the mountain for the start of the festival at 11, many people from the village were dressed up in religious or celebratory clothes, while the rest of us were toting around cameras. The promise of craziness was all around in the forms of a huge pile of dead trees and paper to be burned, a mass of huge logs tied together and sticking straight up in the air (also to be burned) and a never ending supply of sake for cheap next to the drum can fires nearby.

Beating on Kame Sama's door.

People prayed. Made music. Prayed some more. I had work the next day and it was already past my bedtime. At about 1, the firefighters had had enough, so they picked up big sticks, and started beating on the side of Kame Sama's house and shouting for him to come out. Niino replaces that side of the house every year. Kame Sama was having none of this though and refused to show his face. So they pulled out a battering ram. The firefighters spent the next 20 minutes or so beating on Kame Sama's house with sticks and ram, but to no avail. So the priest nearby was like, "Hey. Let's start a fire! That will make him come out!" So they sent a little ship up on a wire to start a fire at the top of the logs. Very slowly, the ship would rise, then fall a little. Two steps forward, one step back, just further building the suspense that was already killing me. Then some more people thought, "Hey! I know! I've got it! Let's dance. He's got to come out if we dance!" So the dancing with bamboo leaves began, and they opened a path for Kame Sama. Middle schoolers with torches pushed the tripod toting Japanese out of the way as the fire was building on the logs. And then, he appeared.

Kame Sama appears, then dances!

Kame Sama appeared with his mask, his huge stick (representative of a penis for fertility) on his head, and another huge stick (guess what this one represents... another penis. He does symbolize fertility.) that he carried with him. If I'd stayed long enough, I could have been whacked on the head with his huge stick and had good luck (Just waiting for the jokes there). But by this point, I had about 3.5 hours of sleep available before a 12 hour work day and a 40 minute ride home, so I turned tail. But I will definitely be going again next year.

Kame Sama doing his thing. Kame Sama's first appearance.

I want some of that good luck.

The Taj Mahal and begging.

After 3 days of travel, 2 nights slept in airports (Christmas Eve included), and a cold that had the girls I was traveling with watching me in my sleep waiting for me to "cough up blood," we had Christmas Dinner in Agra, and this was our view.

Photo Thanks to Laura.

That's the Taj Mahal of course. There were no real Christmas trees, no huge roast piece of meat, and no family in this hemisphere, but I still couldn't have been happier munching down on curry, nan, and drinking King Fisher as the sun set over the rooftops of Agra.

Sunrise at the Taj Gates.

The next day we woke up to actually go to the grounds of the Taj Mahal. We were the second group in line, with only a British couple in front of us. It was still dark at 5:30 when we got there, but we were able to get a great spot for the sunrise when the gates opened at 6. We had our cameras set to long exposure as we watched the ghost of the Taj Mahal fade into view through the foggy sunrise. It's hard to explain just how beautiful the Taj is, but I hope the pictures that we took give some impression. Frankly though, they can't do it justice. It's truly epic, and waking up early, having the sun rising in the east, and the moon still setting in the west was a little too poetic.

Few things get me up that early...

The rest of the day we played connect four with a restaurant owner (he let me win the first one... hustler.) and then wandered around a market buying Sari's and overpriced "95%" silver jewelry. The Sari's were gorgeous and colorful. Cristina went through the whole process of buying one and there are more photos of that up on the album.

That's a lot of colors.

The street with all the markets was interesting , particularly our first experience with begging children in India. It was sad, because A) They don't leave you alone. B) You know their parents sent them to do this because they're adorable, and C) This is a JOB in India. For the children it is something they are born into, but often, given the option of another profession, or real help they return to begging.

One story jumps to mind that we were told at the Yoga Institute in Mumbai (Bombay). An Instructor was lecturing on life, and explained that her friend had seen a beggar with no pants. She went home and got the beggar a sari to wear. The beggar graciously accepted it, and the friend walked away. After a few paces she turned around, and found that the beggar had already taken off the sari and continued begging naked. It's a real departure from what I was used to seeing back home, and very jarring to see so many children doing it. In Mumbai, the children even went so far as to pinch us and tug my arm hair to try to get money out of us.

Taj and the Moon.

So that's the info on the Taj and my rant on begging in India. On the plus side, some of the little kids selling Taj snow globes outside the gates were really entertaining. A dialogue with Laura:

Kid: "A very good gift! You want a snowglobe?"
Laura: "No Thanks."
Kid: "Very good price. 100 Rupees and a kiss!"
Laura: "What?! I think I'm a little old for you."
Kid pauses for a moment then says: "My brother then!"
Laura: "I'm too old for your brother too. I'm 56."
Kid stops to think, then: "My father then! My father!"

Cute.

Bought this shirt off of one of the kids selling things outside the Taj.
He said it was a medium...

Click here for my photos from India

All I want for Chritmas is Curry and Beach.

This is less of a fun post or a story post than an informative post. Many people do know, but some don't that this Christmas I'm not staying in Japan. I'm also not coming home. Instead, I'm going with a couple friends from here in Japan to India.

The plan is as follows:
1) Fly into Chennai
2) Immediately fly to Delhi
3) Christmas at the Taj Mahal
4) Mumbai for a few days
5) Goa for New Years. Party.
6) Hampi for gorgeous, freaky temples for a day or two
7) Flight out of Chennai

Obviously I can't give photos yet, but I promise bunches when I get back. And if anyone has some advice on India... I can't use it. My head is about to explode with planning this as is and if you tell me one more must-see spot to go, I'll believe you and try to make it work. Otherwise, Happy Holidays and I hope you are enjoying the snow back stateside.

Nuts to that. I need beach.

Daftfacemeltingfunkfest / I've wanted to dance for 3 months.

I saw Daft Punk in Tokyo last weekend.

For some of the people who might read this (Does anyone really read this? The whole blog idea still feels like an exercise for the ego.) that means absolutely nothing, but for those that do understand what Daft Punk is and everything that it means, I know they're already as fired up as I was when I first heard they were coming to Tokyo and tickets were available.

The Famous Pyramid

For those of you that don't know, however, Daft Punk are a Parisian electronic music duo who have been doing their thing for about ten years now. They were around as electronic music was just getting started and were among those fighting to legitimize a genre of music that many people hated. Basically, they're awesome.

On the way to Makuhari Messe, a large convention center in Chiba in between Tokyo and Tokyo Disneyland, there were a lot of foreigners on the train and I was pretty confident that most of them were going to the concert. In fact, I knew lots of people who would be going and lots more who wished they had bought tickets in time. Our arms were sore from the Typhoid Vaccinations we'd gotten just hours ago in preparation for India, and we were tired from a cold night in our capsules at the hostel in Shinjuku. But none of that could drown out the excitement we were feeling at seeing one of our favorite artists at such a huge venue... and in freaking TOKYO!

The Pyramid and Graphs.

When we got off the Subway I took a mental note of the scalpers selling tickets right outside the train station. I was so glad I already had my ticket. We got in line, got searched, and I handed my ticket to the woman. "Honto?! Kono wa Ashita!"

Crap.

I didn't look at the calendar when I bought the ticket at the convenience store and accidentally bought one for the next day. Not to be discouraged, I gathered all of my (and my friend's money) and we sprinted back to talk to those same Yakuza scalpers that I'd noticed earlier. The two grown Japanese men in white track suits were really friendly and gave us a much better offer than the first Russian guy we talked to about swapping the tickets. I suppose maybe you shouldn't buy tickets from the Japanese mafia, but I prefer to think of it as correcting a mistake rather than doing something downright evil. After all, someone had to buy those tickets. If not, both my ticket for tomorrow, AND the one he had for that day would have been wasted. Really, I'm a hero.

When the curtain on the main stage lifted, the famous pyramid of light was center stage, the two Frenchmen were wearing their robot suits and masks (Google Image them if you want to see), and people were shoving hard for the front. It was like a tide, there would be a hard push forward, and then a hard push back a few seconds later. As the duo opened with "One More Time," a classic, the pushing was still going on, and it would be another five minutes of awkward dancing/ pushing/ standing in one place because there was no space to dance, until those that were tired of being pushed retreated, and the rest of us secured our dancing space.

Red Lights. It was awesome dammit! You could never understand!

It was amazing. The music was incredible and on a whole other level than listening to the CD for the Daft Punk parties like in College. The lights on their pyramid and the rest of the stage were awesome. Then, they turned on some red lights on their suits and helmets. Everyone went nuts. It was just lights... but... yeah, I know it sounds stupid now, but it was awesome then! The set was far two short at one hour and the brief encore did little to make me feel otherwise. But despite that, it was without a doubt the best DJ set I've ever seen.

At the end of the show, it was 8:30 or so (early I know) and once again, we had no hotel that night. As usual though, we met some people at the concert. After the train ride back to Tokyo, we spent a couple hours looking for a hotel in Shibuya, and were told every single one was full. Not much of a surprise at midnight though I suppose. After retreating to the 24 hr. McDonald's to contemplate our next move, and admittedly, I was ready to sleep at the McDonald's if need be (Lord knows I wouldn't be the first) the Japanese punker we met at the show offered to let us crash at his place a little ways north of Shinjuku. We hopped in a cab, picked up a couple beers at the convenience store and then stayed up a little longer watching an old Fugazi (DC Hardcore Punk band from the heyday back in the late 80's) that definitely made me miss D.C. until we all fell asleep on the floor.

It was another great trip to Tokyo, and yes, another example of making a Japanese friend and having them save us. Can't wait to go back and do it again.

My Best Student Just Legimitately Kicked My Ass.

There are a couple things that dawn on you when you pull on a kendo mask
1) You're reasonably well protected now from the wooden sword you're about to be repeatedly hit with.
2) That itch on your masked nose is now so out of the reach of your gloved finger that you're just going to have to deal.

Kendo is Japanese fencing. It's a pretty common thing to practice in gym class in the winter when it's too cold to have the usual relay races or swimming. Since I can see my breath in the English Classroom I guess it's time for Kendo.

After a moment of meditation, students put on their armor. At my junior high school, these pieces included a large chestplate (with an adorable little pot belly) glove and wrist guards, a sort of protective kilt, and finally the helmet made of some thick woven material with a hard metal cage over the face. It's all pretty light and easy to move around in, except for the helmet, whose unforgiving chinguard makes it a little tricky to speak, let alone speak in your third language.

After watching my students take turns walloping each other for two minute intervals, it was easy to see how their personalities in class translated to their fencing. My best student, a 15 year old girl who just recently passed a very important national English test had a very slow, methodical approach to her fencing. She rarely made the first move and almost always found an opening on her opponent, the star baseball player who had at least a foot on her in height. After he made a quick move towards her, she would do a quick forward hop, bringing her sword down across his guard and then further extending and angling her swing with a sharp downward wrist movement, thus bypassing the additional defense given by the hilt of his sword. There were no huge hits, but they did connect.

One of my other students, really more of a class clown but still one of my favorites, had a much different approach. His tactic was to almost ignore his own defense completely in favor of landing as many quick swings to the gut as possible. While his strategy seemed to yield some results against his opponent, it was difficult to imagine how he and the one girl in the class would have matched up. I knew his tactics were unique when he turned and ran away from his opponent at one point to get away from his counter attack and all the other students started laughing.

When it was finally my turn, the Gym teacher strapped on my helmet and told me I would be matched up against my best student, the careful fencer who I'd watched take down someone twice her size not 10 minutes earlier. I had an itch on my nose, was fighting in my socks, but I knew that neither of those minor handicaps really made a difference for what was about to happen. Itch or not, I was about to get my foreign, non-sword weilding butt handed to me.

The first half of the fight, she went on the offensive, and I was able to deflect her attacks for what felt like a pretty long time (maybe 5 seconds in reality right?) before she landed a hit to my forearm just above where the guard ended. As we retreated back to our starting positions, she apologized endlessly, as expected, though it really didn't hurt at all. The next go, I had her on the defensive for a while, landing maybe one or two glancing blows to her gloves before she whacked me square on top of my head. Third try: smack to the head. Fourth: Two quick smacks to the head. The 2 minute buzzer sounded and the match was over. I don't think anyone bothered keeping track of the score, the fight being as one-sided as it was. She and I were both laughing as we sat down and began taking our armor off for the end of class meditation. As soon as her mask was off though, she turned to me one last time to say, "I'm sorry!"

I know she was going easy on me. I found out a couple days ago that she's the best in the class, and has fought in competitions. I'm lucky I got away with as few knocks to the head as I did. I am hopeful I'll be invited to class again so I can strap on my potbelly armor one more time. Maybe I can join the 7th graders. They're smaller and haven't been practicing as long. I might be able to beat a 12 year old... But 15 year old girls are way too tough for me.

Mountain Child.

I have this thing about planning my vacations here in Japan. I just don't do it. This past weekend was no different. The morning the long weekend started, I was cleaning up my house after a TV Party and I still didn't remember the name of the town I was about to drive some number of hours to meet a friend and go hiking. Lucky for my friend and me, Japanese people seem to save us (like surfers in Kamakura for example) on a regular basis.

After a drive that was only slightly longer than anticipated, I arrived in Okutama. It's a long stretch of mountain town extending along a road and the river along which it runs parallel for a few miles within local train distance of Tokyo. First thing I noticed when I got there, was all the locals noticing me. I get stared at in Tenryu, but here, I got the distinct impression I was being stared down.

Tori on Mt. Mitake

After meeting up and spending an hour or so looking for parking, we hopped on the cable car up the mountain to the shrines, trails, and our youth hostel. The hostel was great and as soon as I walked in to the room I would be sharing with 6 other men, a 40 something Japanese man, hiking alone, introduced himself in English. "Nice to meet you. My name is hard to say, so please call me Yama-chan." Yama-chan basically translates as "Mountain Child."

Mountain child and I went off to dinner where we began discussing our plan for tomorrow.

Mountain Child: "What is your plan?"
Us: "We don't really have one."
GASP! Cardinal transgression number one. Japanese hikers nearly always have a plan ages in advance. We had broken a key rule.

Mountain Child: "I will leave at 7:30 tomorrow morning. When will you leave?"
Us: "Maybe 8..."
GASP! To a Japanese hiker, waking up past 5 is late, leaving past 6:30 is late, and going to sleep after 7 is late. I don't do that schedule well. In fact, the disparity in internal clocks between Japanese hikers, trekkers, mountain climbers, and the rest of the world is well documented. Lonely Planet's Japan hiking guide makes special note of this call foreign hikers attention to the early starts, early sleeping, and planning of hikers. They also state that these tenets are rigidly adhered to, regardless of such factors people might consider like, inclement whether, crowds, or any other such nonsense. The fact that the HALF HOUR DIFFERENCE between our start times elicited such a response, along with some aspects of my story of hiking Mt. Hakuba should be ample evidence of these facts.

Planning or some such nonsense

After being made to feel thoroughly inadequate we talked with the other lone hiker men populating the hostel that night, nearly all of whom spoke excellent English. After dinner, we looked at a map with Mountain Child to discuss our plan for tomorrow. After a while, we began to notice his use of the singular first person pronoun "I" shift to the plural first person pronoun, "We." This did not go unnoticed.

Sure enough tomorrow morning as I was munching on my breakfast in the common area, I learned that Mountain Child was planning on hiking with us that day. Sure why not. But we made him wait to leave til 8:30.

The hike on Day 2 was up a mountain covered in Wasabi. REAL Wasabi.

The hike was great, we saw a Rock Garden, waterfalls, and made it up three peaks during the 7 hours on the trail that day. Mountain Child was a great traveling partner too. He kept us from getting lost with his amazing skill at... reading Japanese. We fed him yaki soba and helped him carry his backpack during the hike. Despite his plan and concern about our starting time, his behavior on the trail was much closer to what you might think hearing his name. He was a lot of fun and loved showing us all the neat spots on the trail. A great time was had by all.

Fuji san from the Hike on Day 1

At the bottom of the hike, we said goodbye and exchanged emails. It was at this time that I learned that I had misheard Mountain Child the previous night when he had told us his name. Part of his name was "-yamayan," dangerously close to "-chan" explaining my mistake, but not changing my mind that his name was, in fact, Mountain Child.

Yeah. Mountain Man.

It was another good day of hiking, and I had another great Japanese bath to close out the night.

Onsen for Beginners. Or the case for taking a 3 hour bath with strangers.

Onsen are the Japanese public baths. They are everywhere. There are three in Tenryu. You're never too far away from stepping into a boiling hot tub with dozens of (Japanese) members of the same sex for a good old soak. Whether you believe it upon first hearing or not, that's a good thing.

Baths are a real Japanese tradition (or so I understand). There are the huge public baths that one can find in the cities, like Iida near me, all the way down to slightly less extravagant tubs for one. Traditionally they would be fueled by underground hot springs, but the only real requirement is hot water. Having said that, I have seen -- this weekend in fact -- rusty old metal drums set on cinder blocks that are used as baths as well. Just put a wood fire under the drum filled with water and, voila, you're cooking yourself alive just like a crab. Fantastic.

What often holds foreigners back when visting onsen, are the unspoken rules, occasionally difficult treatment, and overall awkwardness of being surrounded by naked Japanese while being naked yourself.

There are lots of rules at an onsen such as:

1) Don't make eye contact. In a society where eye-contact is frowned upon generally, do you really think it would be encouraged when the person you're staring at is naked?

2) Shower before, after, between, and whenever you can. You may be bathing, but that part is to relax. You get clean before you even step in to the tubs. You sit down at a little shower station and lather up well (make sure the Japanese see you do this so they don't think you're still dirty). You should do this before and after the tub, but you should also rinse between the various tubs. More on those later.

3) No Tattoos. It's a Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) thing. Basically, it's not allowed. I know people who have been turned away at the door for having a little bit of that Popeye tattoo on their shoulder visible from under their t-shirt sleeve. You can get away with it sometimes, but don't expect the red carpet treatment. Expect stares.

4) Don't drop the towel. You carry a small hand towel with you at all times. You use it to scrub down in the shower and wipe off your face in the tubs. But absolutely do not let it fall in the tub water. That's bad.

Sound like a lot of rules? Now try doing it naked while being meticulously scrutinized on your execution of all of them. Admittedly, I felt a little paralyzed my first visit. I was alone and completely clueless. When I touched the water, and the ripples of my entrance reached the Japanese men in the tub, they all became aware of the foreigner and got up to leave. But then I went again with some Japanese men after a hike. They showed me the ropes. Now I go at least once a week and its a breeze. The real pleasure is visiting different onsen to see the different tubs they have, and believe me, there are a variety.

I have done several noteworthy tubs thus far: Beautiful outdoor tubs made of rocks and with little waterfalls like miniature versions of a pool on "Cribs." These are gorgeous (if cold) in the snow, or when the appropriately placed Cherry Blossoms are in bloom; indoor tubs infused with Yuzu, a Japanese citrus fruit; natural pools that reek of sulfur or other minerals; and my new favorite, an electro-shock Onsen that shoots electricity at you from little holes in the seat. No joke. It's supposed to make your muscles relax but I had more fun using those "relaxed" muscles trying to fight the electricity as it made them convulse.

There are others too, like the one near the Monkey Onsen (not THE actual Monkey Onsen I love so much) where the monkeys DO occasionally come down to visit. The town where the Monkey Onsen is located is actually made up entirely of Onsen (It's a hotbed for the underground springs) and Ryokan (Traditional hotels) that occasionally house Onsen. Another Onsen there has apples floating in it. The possibilities are endless. When you visit, there are people just walking around the street in their yukatta (robes) between the various Onsen. And (if you're into that sort of thing) there are co-ed Onsen (men and women are usually in completely separate areas within the buildings) that you can visit to sit and relax with ALL of your friends in one place. From what I hear though, These tend to attract the same types as a nude beach in Europe. Lots of tourists and nearly all men.

The real benefit of the Onsen is that, once the pressure surrounding the rules is gone, it is a great excuse to take an overly long shower. After a long cold hike 3000 meters up, there's not much that can top an hour (or two? three?) at an Onsen. It's a great way to slow down and clear your head after that debacle of a lesson for the 2nd graders. Or, after speaking at half-speed English for a whole week, a great place to meet up with other foreigners and have a legitimate excuse to just talk for a couple hours.

So if you come to Japan, don't be afraid. Embrace the steam and awkwardness. Every day of my existence here is awkward, the locations doesn't really matter. And as for the nakedness, well... Don't be a prude. But also don't expect photos attached to this post.