The festival I went to, on September 19th, was called the Chochin Matsuri, or Lantern Festival. Shirakawa City has one of the most famous and largest Chochin Matsuri’s in all of Japan, so when I learned about this festival back in Canada, I was so excited. Unfortunately, it only occurs every 3 years and the last one took place last year. I was a bit disappointed at the time, but what I didn’t know was that during the two years they don’t hold the big one, small Chochin Matsuri’s are held! What the “small” version of the Chochin Matsuri consisted of was a not so small parade through town. It was simply amazing. If that was the “small” version, I would love to see the main festival in two years time.
The Chochin Matsuri is a Shinto religion festival and groups of men (and sometimes women) will carry Shinto shrines on their backs throughout the town to honor the spirits of the dead. I lost count at how many different groups carried shrines and they looked so heavy. When one group would get to an intersection (me and my host mom got a good spot) they would start dancing, I guess that’s what you can call it, while still carrying the shrine. Man, it was so cool! Not all of the groups carried shrines though and people of a wide arrange of ages participated in the parade. Different groups carried different sized lanterns as well as these lanterns on GIANT poles. They were huge! It took like at least two people to carry one of these poles with lanterns on top and to make their jobs more challenging; they had power lines to maneuver through. Another part of the parade was all of the local Shinto priests marched through the streets, holding small lanterns, while these two men dressed up as famous Shinto spirits. The “spirits” danced around and put on quite the show. However, as a respect to their religion, my host mom told me not to take any pictures of the portion of the parade when the priests and “spirits” passed by. So far, it’s been in my top five of the coolest things I have ever seen here in Japan.
Photos from the Chochin Matsuri. (Working on uploading some videos.)
The weeks after the festival were filled with mainly school. I am finally starting to enjoy school. There was a point where I didn’t see much of a point in me going because I did nothing. But I know see it as a good opportunity to study Japanese, since the teachers don’t expect me to do the work, and hang out with my school friends. I also got together with my Club Councilor for dinner one evening to just chat about how things were going. He’s a pretty neat guy and promised to take me out to do more sight-seeing together.
One kind of cool thing that happened to me last week happened when I was looking for the local post office. I had a letter I wanted to send to a friend of mine, so my host mom drew me a map of where to go after school. I got so turned around looking for it. Haha. While I was trying to get my bearings, I found this small, random park type place. It was on side of the road and it kind of looked like they made a park to reserve some ruins. Shirakawa City is very old and has over 30 different temples scattered around the city. (Some are still open and some are blocked off.) They had a bunch of signs explaining different ruin-type looking objects, but I couldn’t make out most of it. Finding this little area made me realize that I should start touring the city by myself more. (I did eventually find the Post Office.)
And that following weekend, that’s exactly what I did. I hopped on my bike and set off for an adventure that was totally worth going on. First of all, I want to say that I don’t think life couldn’t get any better here when I can say “I hopped on my bike to tour the streets of a city located in Japan.” Like really, wow. (RYE you rock!) They area of town I head towards is the “newer” part of town, where most of the shopping centers are. I found an abundant amount of connivance stores on my little adventure, and they have the coolest snacks and drinks ever! I also found a 100 Yen Shop (Kinda like our Dollar Stores), a book and video store, various restaurants, a donut shop, a specialty cake/cafe type place, and the entrance of the main shopping center. I only stopped at a couple of the places so I am planning to go back and check out some more. When I saw the donut store, I wasn’t planning to go inside…however; the smell that was being emitted from the building lured me in. While I was locking my bike up, someone behind me called my name, and when you’re in Japan and probably being the only person with natural blonde hair with that name, so you can imagine how shocked and confused I was to hear my name being called. It turned out to be Maria Tsubata’s mother! Maria is the Japanese Exchange student for District 5370 and is currently living in Edmonton. I have met her mother three times before and she is such a super nice lady. She’s kind of like my second host mom to me. She had come to go shopping, saw my head of blonde hair, and pulled over to chat. We went into the donut shop together and she ended up insisting on buying my snack for me. She also signed me up for a members point card and like ten coupons. Oh boy, extra Rotary pounds here we come. Even though there was still a bit of a language barrier between us, we enjoyed each other’s company and Tsubata-san even promised to take me shopping sometime. It was a very successful adventure. :)
This coming weekend is Thanksgiving, and I am planning to do something special for my host family. I told them about Canadian Thanksgiving and asked if I could make them a pumpkin pie. My host grandma is going to take me shopping for ingredients on Saturday, and then help me bake it. I am also going to make one for my class. I have a Diary I write in during the first twenty minutes of school, and mentioned this. My teacher was shocked to hear that Canada has a different Thanksgiving and asked me if I would mind telling the class about it. So now I have to do a little research on it, and hopefully my pies will turn out okay!
Next week is finally approaching, and I have been looking forward to it for a long time. Next week, all of the 2nd years (Grade 11’s) leave for a 4 day school trip to Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe! Osaka and Kyoto are two cities on my “to-see” list and I cannot wait! We are going to USJ (Universal Studios Japan) and Osaka Castle (the most famous castle in Japan) in Osaka, taking an evening cruise in Kobe, and we are being “let loose” in Kyoto. I EVEN GET TO RIDE THE SHINKANSEN!!! (Bullet Train.) Oh my gosh, I am so excited.
My next entry probably won’t be until after my trip, so sayonara! (For now.)
~Stephanie
PS - I also got a new hair cut!
