For me August has been the month of fireworks and dance festivals. I was lucky enough to have been able to move my Saturday night class to Thursday just this once so I could enjoy the fireworks in my home city. It had heard rumors that Marugame city had a spectacular fireworks show and they did. My apartment building is conveniently right next to the docks where they launch the fireworks. Fiona, Kazeo, Rebecca and I stood on my front porch drinking beer, chatting and watching. The show lasted 45 minutes and raised the bar for all fireworks shows that I [View Full Entry]

---

---

The most famous festival on Shikoku and one of the top festivals in Japan Awa odori* was on the top of my list of things I had to see while living in Japan. From August 12 to 15 people from all over Japan swarm to Tokushima to watch and/or dance at the festival. The nickname for Awa odori, the dance of fools, is derived from the chant the dancers sing. 踊る阿呆に見る阿呆同じ阿呆なら踊らな損、損 Odoru ahou ni miru ahou onaji ahou nara odorana son, son Crazy Dancers [View Full Entry]

---

---

Every year since 1954 the city of Kochi holds a four day dance festival from August 9 ~ 12 called Yosakoi. If you translate Yosakoi into English it means “Come at Night” or “Come Tonight” (Yo=night Sa=at Koi=come). The festival was first held as a means to uplift the downtrodden spirits of the citizens during an economic recession. The City Management in the 1950s sound like interesting and fun loving people to me. Yosakoi dancing is unusual and often described as a modern rendition of Awa dancing, but I fail to see any great similarities. In the past decade or so [View Full Entry]

---

---

I will always look back at this day and think swelteringly hot. August in Japan is not a good time to do site seeing. The best thing to do during the hot muggy days of summer is to stay inside and worship the air conditioning. Despite the heat I wanted to go across the Inland Sea to Honshu and explore. Okayama is the first major city across the Seto Ohashi Bridge on Honshu. Every time I’ve gone to the main island I switched trains at Okayama Station, but I never went into the city before today. Okayama is home to Korakuen [View Full Entry]

---

---

Hanabi is Japanese for fireworks. (Hanabi sounds similar to Hanami, cherry blossom viewing.) Hana means flower and bi means fire. I think "fire flowers" is an aweome way to describe fireworks. My first fireworks festival in Japan and I’m all decked out in yukata! It took me awhile but I figured out all by myself how to put on the yukata properly and tie the obi. Mark met me at my apartment and Naohiro picked us up and drove us to his house in Tadotsu. From there we walked to the docks where everyone was gathered together. The crowd was a [View Full Entry]

---

---

Some friends approached me in Grasshopper’s one night and asked me if I wanted to go camping the next weekend. I was really excited about it because I wanted to go to Oboke Koboke, but the only way to get there is by car. They picked me up outside my apartment Sunday afternoon and we began the two hour drive to the camp site with the radio playing 80s tunes and all four windows down. We drove up and down the winding mountain road in the heat talking, laughing and enjoying the sites around us. At one point one of the [View Full Entry]

---

---

Mark had never been to Ritsurin and we were looking for something to do that Sunday so we caught a train to Takamatsu and rented a pair of bicycles and headed down Chuo Dori to my favorite park. As always Ritsurin was beautiful. We goofed around, took pictures and strolled the paths. At one point we were near the north plum grove and I saw some strange plants had grown up and engulfed an entire previously empty pond. I'd never seen this plant before and I practically sprinted to the pond to investigate (much to Mark’s amusement). It had giant sprouts [View Full Entry]

---

---

Ehime is the most populated prefecture on Shikoku. Kagawa (the one I live in), Ehime, Tokushima and Kochi divide the tiny island into four (unequal) parts. Five months into my stay in Japan and I never visited the other three prefectures. >_< One afternoon at work in early July my manager asked me to go to the Niihama School’s since that school had suddenly lost its teacher. I agreed and caught a train early to Iyo Saijo in Ehime that Sunday completely clueless as to what exactly I was doing when I got there. The ride took a little over an [View Full Entry]

---

---

Seoul ~ June 22nd - 24th At the beginning of June I was told that I might have the opportunity to go to Seoul, Korea on the company’s dime for a training program. Of course they waited until about 3 days before the departure date to confirm it. My first ever business trip. I got up early and caught the train wearing business casual and carting around my new bright yellow carry-on with wheels. (I swore to myself after lugging several bags all the way to Japan that any luggage I owned would have wheels.) The train rides were filled with [View Full Entry]

---

---

I really wish I had brought my camera with me to my welcome party back in February. It was a multiple course traditional Japanese dinner very similar to this party we held for Naomi sensei. Naomi’s meal was the lunch version of mine so there were only seven courses instead of nine. However, this establishment boasted amazing food presentation. The food was carefully prepared and arranged. Each dish also had more variety and I felt it was more traditional than the one we had visited back in February. First course: Appetizers: Shrimp, some sort of egg roll and spring roll, edamame, [View Full Entry]

---

---