So yesterday there was an "Irish Day" in Ise, with a parade and Irish music and everything. The parade was probably the most subdued affair I have ever been a part of, and certainly the quietest St. Patty's parade in existence. But after we got done processing down the main streets of the city, we ended up in the square of a covered outdoor mall and finally got a little louder :3
There, among other delights including Power Rangers who subdued a pig-faced demon with the power of Ise-Shima team spirit, a Japanese band from Nagoya played some fantastic reels. One of our lovely organizers on the JET end taught the crowd some easy Irish line dances. I'd tuckered myself out during the first two rounds, thus I sat out the final song and got the shenanigans on film:
Guidance for the J-go deficient: "jyousei" = ladies; "dansei" = mans
In this dance the wimmins are supposed to form one line, and the guys the other. Of course there weren't really even numbers at the event, and getting most Japanese men (cool old dudes excepted) to do anything in a circle with everybody watching is like herding cats. Nevertheless, it was good times :D
On the real St. Patrick's Day, I will be hopping a night-bus to Tokyo in the first leg of my two-week trip to India. I am so stoked, you guys! First three days I am host-famming it up in Delhi, next week is building houses with a volunteer group down in Andhra Pradesh, and if I survive all that hard work in the burning sun, I get to chillax for my last three days with a pre-arranged tour package. And then I get to go back to work the day after I return, haaaaaa ha ha ha oh god (>__>) I still have no idea what I am teaching next term besides the first-year classes.
Showing posts with label holiday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holiday. Show all posts
March 14, 2010
December 7, 2009
Happy St. Nicholas Day (belated)
Upon the feast day of Santa Claus 1.0, I found myself back in Nagoya again, gettin' presents for myself and others. Would have gotten my parents' Christmas box, except the post office tends not to deliver big honkin' boxes when there is no one to which they can hand 'em over. But it got re-delivered tonight, and I gotta say, for spending a week derping through the international post system, those cookies sure aren't too pulverized :D Yay!
While in Sakae, I found the perfect way to illustrate to many hiLOLities of Kurisumasu-toki in Yapan:
Yes, that is the Colonel. Yes, KFC's Colonel. Doesn't your family uphold the cherished Western tradition of the Christmas bucket o' chicken parts? Heathens!
(and incidentally, yes, this IS a digital picture of a picture on my cell phone...I um, left my memory card at the office. Oh technology.)
The other main activities of Christmas are eating big white-frosted cakes with strawberries on them and going on dates. Perhaps dates where you eat big white-frosted cakes with strawberries on them, I dunno. The general atmosphere of Christmas and New Year's is basically the reverse of what it is in the States, except only New Year's Day is a national holiday here.
Luckily, this year the school is giving everybody the three weekdays leading up to January 1 off, no paid leave needed, thus I will be spending the holiday season up in Hokkaido :3 There I will hopefully see such wonders as their free-range moss balls (this is not a lie), only-two-snowballs snowmen, and the Japanese yeti (this may or may not be a lie).
While in Sakae, I found the perfect way to illustrate to many hiLOLities of Kurisumasu-toki in Yapan:
Yes, that is the Colonel. Yes, KFC's Colonel. Doesn't your family uphold the cherished Western tradition of the Christmas bucket o' chicken parts? Heathens!
(and incidentally, yes, this IS a digital picture of a picture on my cell phone...I um, left my memory card at the office. Oh technology.)
The other main activities of Christmas are eating big white-frosted cakes with strawberries on them and going on dates. Perhaps dates where you eat big white-frosted cakes with strawberries on them, I dunno. The general atmosphere of Christmas and New Year's is basically the reverse of what it is in the States, except only New Year's Day is a national holiday here.
Luckily, this year the school is giving everybody the three weekdays leading up to January 1 off, no paid leave needed, thus I will be spending the holiday season up in Hokkaido :3 There I will hopefully see such wonders as their free-range moss balls (this is not a lie), only-two-snowballs snowmen, and the Japanese yeti (this may or may not be a lie).
January 6, 2009
Happy Moo Year
Yes, we are neck-deep into week 1 of the Year of the Cow (or "ox" if you wanna be all old-school, but cows are moar cute yuh-huh). It's supposed to be my year. Thus far it's been a mixture of awesome and failure. Awesome mostly coming from my winter vacation in the FROZEN NORTHLANDS Oh My God Snow!!!! :D And chocolate, and REAL cheese, and sloppy joes for dinner & waffles for breakfast, and fireplaces, and homey Midwestern-Americans who pronounce their o's kinda funny but at least they don't need to keep giving me verbal cues to constantly reassure me that our social relationship is A-OK.
Not that I didn't miss Japan. I totally missed out on New Year's Eve + sunrise at Ise's sun-goddess shrine, and that only happens once a year :c Also I missed the national transportation system that actually works. Most of the time. When I don't bork my timing. That was the failure I mentioned way up there ^
After a day of risking pulmonary embolisms in planes, (for some reason I never think "ohmygod what if the plane crashes????" - it's always "ohmygod what if the blood in my legs clots because I can't goddamn move and it gets into my lungs or my brain and I DIE????" I'm getting aisle seats from now on, because apparently nobody in the world has properly functioning kidneys anymore so they NEVER PEE or get up to do anything EVER and I'm stuck feeling like a jerk 'cause I made the 6'8" guy who just found the one comfy position in his undersized seat move to let me out again) I was finally in familiar territory in Nagoya. Express train from airport to main city station, express train from main city station home. Easy.
Except I took the wrong express train home. Not really the WRONG one, just the one that left for Toba 13 minutes too late to catch a local train back to my town. And by "left for Toba" I actually mean "left for Ujiyamada and you have to take the local Toba train to actually get to Toba." In my defense, I hadn't eaten for about 4 hours and used those 13 extra minutes to find food.
Totally against my defense, though, I'm already well-versed in the weasely bait-and-switches Kintetsu likes to pull with their train service, so I really should have just hopped the first train back to be safe. I knew better. In my defense again, though, 15 hours of airline travel. Brain not working at full capacity.
Oh well. All the craptacular travel experiences Japan can throw at me (and really that's been the only one thus far, and not nearly as harrowing as being stranded somewhere in the States or, yanno, any other country that's not Japan. Both of which have happened before) won't take away from the awesome winter break I had. Movies and music and hanging out and sleeping in, and even though I am contractually obligated as a former Chicagoan to forever grudge Macy's their blackhearted takeover of Marshall Field's, I DID find an awesome fitted shirt there, and a jacket as well, both on sale thank you shopping mojo <3
So, to wrap up, things the new year holds:
shopping mojo (always)
little ceramic cows that go "dingle-dingle-dingle!"
enough Americana to last for the next 18 months
books, books, all kinds of books! (thanks, Mom & Dad!)
grad school apps
new first-year students
at least 3 new babies (lots of young married teachers in my office)
at least 1 new prime minister (lolz j/k...or AM I???)
AT LAST a new president
adventure, alliteration, serial commas, and onomatopoeia
Not that I didn't miss Japan. I totally missed out on New Year's Eve + sunrise at Ise's sun-goddess shrine, and that only happens once a year :c Also I missed the national transportation system that actually works. Most of the time. When I don't bork my timing. That was the failure I mentioned way up there ^
After a day of risking pulmonary embolisms in planes, (for some reason I never think "ohmygod what if the plane crashes????" - it's always "ohmygod what if the blood in my legs clots because I can't goddamn move and it gets into my lungs or my brain and I DIE????" I'm getting aisle seats from now on, because apparently nobody in the world has properly functioning kidneys anymore so they NEVER PEE or get up to do anything EVER and I'm stuck feeling like a jerk 'cause I made the 6'8" guy who just found the one comfy position in his undersized seat move to let me out again) I was finally in familiar territory in Nagoya. Express train from airport to main city station, express train from main city station home. Easy.
Except I took the wrong express train home. Not really the WRONG one, just the one that left for Toba 13 minutes too late to catch a local train back to my town. And by "left for Toba" I actually mean "left for Ujiyamada and you have to take the local Toba train to actually get to Toba." In my defense, I hadn't eaten for about 4 hours and used those 13 extra minutes to find food.
Totally against my defense, though, I'm already well-versed in the weasely bait-and-switches Kintetsu likes to pull with their train service, so I really should have just hopped the first train back to be safe. I knew better. In my defense again, though, 15 hours of airline travel. Brain not working at full capacity.
Oh well. All the craptacular travel experiences Japan can throw at me (and really that's been the only one thus far, and not nearly as harrowing as being stranded somewhere in the States or, yanno, any other country that's not Japan. Both of which have happened before) won't take away from the awesome winter break I had. Movies and music and hanging out and sleeping in, and even though I am contractually obligated as a former Chicagoan to forever grudge Macy's their blackhearted takeover of Marshall Field's, I DID find an awesome fitted shirt there, and a jacket as well, both on sale thank you shopping mojo <3
So, to wrap up, things the new year holds:
shopping mojo (always)
little ceramic cows that go "dingle-dingle-dingle!"
enough Americana to last for the next 18 months
books, books, all kinds of books! (thanks, Mom & Dad!)
grad school apps
new first-year students
at least 3 new babies (lots of young married teachers in my office)
at least 1 new prime minister (lolz j/k...or AM I???)
AT LAST a new president
adventure, alliteration, serial commas, and onomatopoeia
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