Towada Hanabi (Fireworks) Festival

Tuesday I packed for the Aomori (prefectural) Conference from Wednesday to Friday. I also finally made my way to the JTB travel to book my flight (to Toronto) for October. The travel agent was super nice. I felt a little bad because my schedule wasn’t really flexible and I asked her to go through a lot of different options, but finally we ended up getting me a flight on Air Canada leaving Japan and arriving in Canada on Thursday night, and leaving Canada on Sunday morning and returning to Japan Monday in the afternoon. I had to pay a little extra to guarantee my seat, but it still ended up being just a little over 100,000 yen (~$1000), which was a lot cheaper than I was expecting, especially for Air Canada. Plus the return flight is direct, which is really convenient!

Then, early in the evening (around 6pm?) I finally mustered up the courage to go around and to meet my neighbours. I introduced myself, explained I was a new ALT from Canada, and gave out omiyage (souvenirs from Canada). Everyone was very nice, although I didn’t really understand much of what they were saying because I got so flustered by the fact that I was talking alone with them that I couldn’t really process much. One of the neighbours spoke a little English, and she mentioned that she has two children in school. She also said something about how she was a little surprised because my face was Asian, so she didn’t realize I was a new ALT.

Oh, and a funny thing was that everyone asked me if there had been a change in ALT’s. I guess my predecessor didn’t tell any of the neighbours that she was leaving. *shrug*

After that, I went to see the fireworks in the park near City Hall with R, K, J, and AH. They started pretty early—before we even left—so we were worried they would end before we got there, but they actually lasted for about an hour and fifteen minutes!

We wandered around the park for a while, looking at the various food stands that had been set up. Seeing many of the guys and girls in yukata made me wish I had one too! I think that’s a real Japanese experience: going to a summer festival in a yukata and geta! Oh well, hopefully I’ll be able to get one soon. (Maybe they’ll even be on sale, since summer is almost over!)

I also bought my long desired takoyaki, but I forgot to take a picture of it because I had to grab it and go! AB and RB (his wife) were waiting for us at AH's house to take us to RB’s brother’s farm. There we met a huge group of RB’s family, and ate various grilled meats—scallop, chicken, etc.

They offered us lots of alcohol too, but I abstained.

Obon in Misawa

Monday (we were given the day off to get our households in order) T-sensei picked AH and I up to go with her family to “celebrate” obon. Basically obon is a time when families go to pay respects to their ancestors; during this time, families clean the tombstones, leave offerings, and pray at temples. T-sensei and her husband were great about explaining the various rituals, and they even asked us to participate by placing some incense on the tomb marker.

(One thing that I didn't think about until much later, though, is whether or not I should have participated in the ceremony. I mean, I viewed it as a cultural/respect thing, but there was a Buddhist priest performing rites, and it is a Buddhist holiday/"celebration". Should I have tactfully declined to participate? I don't know, and I suspect that this will be a recurring problem/issue for me: the tension between being open to different cultures/beliefs and being true to my Christian beliefs.)

After that, we went for dinner at T-sensei’s house. Her mother had made most of the food, and there was a TON of it. Her husband was really excited to have AH there, since she was able to try out all his different beers—and of course that meant he was able to drink as well! We also met T-sensei’s two teenage (high school aged) sons. They were quite shy—probably because we’re girls—but they seemed like nice guys.

Homecooking

Sunday was a grocery shopping and cleaning day. It was also the first day I cooked “real” meals. They weren’t all that impressive, but they were edible and healthy! For lunch, I fried up some eggplant and grilled some salmon in the fish grill. Unfortunately I overcooked the salmon because I had no idea what I was doing! Dinner was pretty similar: fried eggplant and octopus (undercooked, I think—it was still pretty chewy), plus a fried egg.

Photos: Two separate, but remarkably similar meals.

Food & Fun

It was really hot on Saturday—so hot I couldn’t stand staying in the house all day. So I went to AH’s house. Luckily she was home (I’d tried calling, but the phone just kept ringing) since I was dying from the heat even on that short 20min walk, and it would’ve been a pain to just turn around and go home if she was away!

So yeah, we sat around in her house for quite a while—it was in the shade and she had screen doors (I didn’t find mine until afterwards) so there was a nice breeze blowing through the house. We called K and made arrangements to meet up with her, R, CH and J for karaoke, and then went to a nearby French bakery.

Man, that place was awesome! They had so many yummy looking things, it was hard to choose! (Thank goodness *I* don’t live near it, or I would probably go there all the time and to heck with my budget and my resolution to “get fit/healthy”.) In the end, though, I went for the Tanuki cupcake because it looked more chocolate-y than the Doraemon one. =P The store even gave us mini ice-packs to keep our treats cool as we walked back to AH’s place!

When everyone else came to meet us for karaoke, we actually ended up going back to the bakery because we told them how cool it was and they all wanted to try. Then we walked down to Karaoke Festa (near my house). We sang for about three hours—we actually did Bohemian Rhapsody!—and then headed to Skylark (a chain restaurant) for a late dinner/snack. I had pasta with some sort of meat and a lightly poached egg, plus green tea and vanilla ice cream for dessert!

Karaoke photos: