Unlike my first week in Komagane, my first one in Aomori was really exciting, thanks to the Aomori Nebuta Matsuri. Instead of being dumped off at a silent, dark, empty school for a couple weeks (most teachers went on vacation with their families during the summer holiday), I arrived in Aomori just in time to participate in arguably one of the biggest festivals in all of Japan!
This festival draws many tourists from not only Japan, but also many other foreign countries. Even though Aomori is one of the most difficult places to travel to (even for those who live in Japan), it still gets really crowded during this festival season. Normally, Aomori doesn't draw too many tourists due to the lack of convenient/inexpensive transportation going there. Basically, it's such an awesome festival that many people from all over will go to great lengths to come here and enjoy Nebuta!
During the first week of August, festivals stalls lined the streets, decorations hung from all the local stores, and many people were out and about touring Aomori City. At night, the streets downtown were lit up by huge floats (lit by fluorescent or incandescent light bulbs powered by portable generators and rechargeable batteries) that are so heavy that many people have work together to be able to carry just one! These floats line up and parade through the streets in a loop for a couple of hours. In between the floats, there were taiko performances, people playing the traditional festival song on flutes accompanied by cymbals, and groups of dancers that jumped through the streets. This goes on at night for about a week! The festival ends with a really big fireworks show on the last day. It's pretty crazy!
The awesome thing about Nebuta is that anyone can participate as long as they're wearing festival attire!
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| Picture stolen from Ryan's Facebook. This is "haneto", the traditional jumping attire worn by Nebuta Festival participants. |
The song and the "dance" are super simple: you hop on one foot twice, then hop on the other foot twice while yelling "Rase-ra, rase-ra! Rase-rase-rase-RA!* Participating in the festival is "haneru", literally "jumping". Some people jump for half an hour on the first day...others will jump the entire night all week long! In fact, some JETs jump so much that they develop lasting injuries.
This is why stretching is important, kids.
Other notable festivals around the area are the Tachineputa Festival in Goshogawara and Neputa Festival in Hirosaki. I wasn't able to go to Hirosaki, but I got to see the Tachineputa. The streets in Goshogawara are really narrow, so it's impossible to have impressively wide nebutas. Therefore, they build UP instead of out. The resulting floats are really, REALLY tall...the average tachineputa float is about 20 meters tall. Yes, 20 meters!!! The chant is also a bit different; they yell "Yattemare, yattemare!"
Here's one of the tallest floats that I saw at the Tachineputa Festival!
Anyways, since coming to Aomori, I've been whisked around all over the place for signing official paperwork (address change notifications, etc.), greeting important people at welcome parties, doing welcome speeches, and, of course, for sight-seeing, taste-testing, and otherwise orienting myself to my new home.
A few notable differences between Aomori and Komagane:
1) Aomori is much bigger than Komagane and, as such, has much more of a big-city feel to it. There is always something going on somewhere, I can get anything you need (food-wise, home supplies-wise, hobbies-wise, etc.) thanks to the abundance of stores in the city, and most of the streets are actually lit.
2) Many JETs live in Aomori City. In Komagane, only one other JET lived in my city. The next JET closest was in the town over (about 10 mins away on the train). Other JETs lived pretty far away. Not having a car, it was almost impossible to meet up with others to hang out. On the flip-side, I was forced to actually speak Japanese. Anyways, seeing JETs all the time is nice, but a bit disorienting at times! lol In any case, I did feel a lot more welcome when I came here.
3) Foreigners are very rare here. In fact, many of the shop-keepers tend to give extra special service to foreigners (or people who look like foreigners). Just the other week, Ryan and I were given free popsicles by a really nice shopkeeper after a meal! While this is a plus for me, poor Ryan often gets disgruntled when this subject comes up; since he doesn't look like a foreigner, he doesn't tend to get freebies as often (if ever). :[
4) We have a car! FREEDOM!!! Having the option to go anywhere any time we want has been really convenient and it will surely be a godsend in the winter, when our mobility gets limited due to the snow.
Other highlights of my Aomori experience thus far:
1) Feeding my students and the people at my workplaces tsukudani inago (locust preserved by soy sauce and mirin). Faces range from extreme disgust to happily surprised to intense discomfort. Some people have even screamed at the sight of it! (Relax people, they're already dead...)
2) Eating at an all-you-can-eat barbecue place that served horse meat
3) Hills Thunder: riding a go-cart down a huge hill at lightning-speed! Well, to put it more clearly, Ryan goes down Hills Thunder at lightning-speed. I finish after him around the same time that you hear thunder crash after you see lightning. :P
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| The view from the top of Hills Thunder on a clear day |
4) Going to Asamushi Aquarium and seeing salamanders, dolphins, giant sea turtles, etc!
5) Going to Lake Towada and Oirase Gorge (where we hiked along a mosquito-ridden trail until we got rained on and had to run all the way back to where our car was parked [about 2km away])
That's all for this time! Next time, I'll write more about my new schools soon!
*It sounds like "rah-say-rah".
**It sounds like "yah-tay-mah-ray".
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