Sake it to me, baby

OK so this week was pretty uneventful other than the meeting in the city. I didn't ski at all this week except for a half-day today. Anyway, one very cool thing last week was after school me, Debs, Kaori, Kaori's dad, Lopaka, Russel and Chiharu had a tour of a small sake company in Kawanishi. The company is called Matsunoi (Wishing Well) osake, and Kaori's dad is buddies with the CEO so he gave us a tour then a feast with all you can drink fresh sake. Twas fun! I'd like to say I learned something about how to make sake, but not really. Still, very interesting, and tasty.

RICE RICE RICE RICE RICE 

The CEO, Furusawa-san, operating some huge important machine that basically just washes rice 

The CEO explaining something, i think saying 'I'll let you come up here, but don't drop your f***ing camera in this barrel or you'll ruin everything' 

washed rice, chilling out in a pile on some wood. i think what's actually happening is more important, something about millet or fermenting or huh? 

mmm...soon-to-be-drinkable rice mush 

Chiharu tempting death. apparently if you fall in to that huge blob of fermenting rice goo, the first breath you take would be of lethal gasses, meaning instant death. i guess there are worse ways to die, but drowning in noxious rice paste doesn't sound too good. 

this guy is the brewmaster, getting ready to serve up some freshly brewed raw sake. he's been making sake for over 50 years. 

Our group minus Kaori (taking the pic), and our big feast. 

It was a beautiful, 90-year-0ld traditional rural Japanese home. I had been in another house like this in Kawanishi before too and I really like the architecture, the old-style screens with the big butsudan. There are huge huge vaulted square ceilings in the two main rooms too. 

that's right, that is a big bucket of fresh sake. this is the 'keg' of rural japan. 

eventually as the night went on and the cold nama sake was surrendered to the cheaper, warm regular sake, pictures started coming out like this... 

...and this 

...and this 

OH, and I went skiing today half day at Cupid Valley towards Joetsu. My first time there and I liked it. Had the feel of Pajarito (my home hill) cuz it was smaller and laid back. Blue bird sunny day, some powder to be found. The occasional fresh tracks too! 

Ni hao are you?

At the conference party (which I thought was fun, yay for drink coupons!), Kelley taught me Irish. Dias guid es moratatu! (errr? huh?) Erik is anum dum!

Then the next day, I learned Mandarin Chinese. Ni hao!

I'm not sure which one will come in the most handy down the road, but I'm betting neither.




This is me putting off recontracting decisions.

birthday fun

I did a lot of relaxing trying to fight off a little cold...but basically my birthday was awesome. Martin's birthday is the 21st so we celebrated together like last year. Went to Tanto with Debs, Martin, Lopaka, Nate, Yuko, Kaori, Keiko, Katsu, and some Japanese teachers that Martin knows. We went to Tanto for food and beer and then off to Yamane, the only bar in town with a pool table. It was a great night and I feel happy that I've been able to fall into a group of friends that remind me that all though I miss my friends back home in a heartbreaking way, the people I've found here are a real blessing. They brought out the 'youngest child' birthday boy in me by lavishing me with fun and silly gifts, from sake and mickey mouse underwear and candles and fun cards to flying pirate games and snacks and foot massagers and a 3-piece grey geriatric pajama suit called "The Governor," complete with vest. I get it guys...I'm older than you. Har.


This afternoon I was particularly Japanese, spending hours at the onsen, sitting in a hot bath in the dumping snow, watching sumo in the lounge, eating noodles and drinking tea, and finishing Memoirs of a Geisha (I liked it). Then when I drove home my whole car and headlights got caked with frozen ice and snow, and I spun off the road and slammed into a huge icy snowbank, leaving a very cool carprint. Consider it a mechanical snow angel. So that was the most exciting part of my day, other than ordering an mp3 player with my xmas/birthday money - thanks everyone! (but it's not an iPod, I decided I'm anti-iPod and I got something much, much cooler).

Off to the city for the annual mid-year conference for two days tomorrow. Will get a hotel in the city with some other ALT's after a party at Shame. While I don't look always look forward to the conferences, I usually come away with something useful and it's nice to be in the city for a couple days.

But I think I'm ignoring the fact that my recontracting decision is due in a few days. I have no idea what to do.

It's my birthday. Love me.

FIRE FIRE FIRE

Last weekend I drove with Lopaka, Breccan from Ojiya, Debs and Katsu to Nozawa Onsen across the border in Nagano for my favorite winter event, the Nozawa Onsen Dosojin Fire Festival. There is no way to describe an event like this to someone who has not lived in Japan. To the uninitiated, it looks on the surface like a bunch of crazed, drunken men with flaming torches, trying to kill each other. Which is pretty much what it is. But I remember Debs saying "This is so Japan". I found myself nodding in approval without knowing why. It just makes sense.

Personally it is a comforting and important event for me because it is essentially the Japanese version of Zozobra in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which I went to every September until I left for college. Zozobra is a longtime tradition during the 300-year-old or so Fiestas de Santa Fe, which is a special New Mexican event celebrating the reconquest of New Mexico by those wily Spaniards after they got their asses deservedly revolted on by the Pueblos. Anyway, the point of Zozobra is to stand in a field in front a huge massive angry puppet named Old Man Gloom, who represents gloom and all sorts of nastiness. We drink beer and then swear at him while a bunch of weird cult-like things happen until he blows up in flames and we all dance around and cheer. To a New Mexican, it's completely natural. To a non-native, it's a bit odd: I remember taking Paul Grosfield and Sarah to one a few years ago and they were like "You people are crazy!" But basically, it's just a way to lift the year's troubles and glooms and send them scurrying away in the form of flames and ash. If you wanna see pics of the flaming beast, check it out http://www.zozobra.com/gallery3.html

The Nozawa Fire Festival is similar because it is ultimately about burning away evil spirits from the past year (it's always on January 15, which is a day in which fires are burned all over Japan for that purpose, part of starting the new year). The details of the two may be different, but the overall sequence of events is the same: start with some small fires, build it up with people doing some weird chanting and running around, and then the climax with setting the main object aflame.

Anyway, instead of just describing the Nozawa festival with words, I'll shut up and post some pictures.

Here's the whole scene. I'll try to explain. There is the huge shrine on the left, made by local trees. Up top are drunk 42-year-0ld men. Below them are drunk 25-year-old men, who are defending them from the other men of the village, who are all wielding flaming torches. The guys with the torches want to set fire to the big shrine because that's the ultimate goal of the festival. They start smacking the defenders with the flaming torches and throwing the torches into the middle of the shrine. The defenders fight back by swatting the torches away or punching the other guys in the face, or just pushing them over. The guys on top who are about to be set on fire laugh and taunt the torch bearers with songs and clapping. Eventually the guys on top evacuate, the guys on bottom - covered in black soot and blood - make friends and move into the crowd, and they bring in a larger fire to start the shrine ablaze.

On the right are these cool poofy shrines made by families of the village who have given birth to a baby boy within the past year. Eventually they are torched as an offering of sorts.

Wanna know what else is cool? See all those people's heads below me? That's how much taller I am than everyone. Yay for me.

The St. Bernards of Japan, these drunken fellows make their way through the crowd with 2 liter bottles of sake tied to their necks, forcing sake down spectator's throats. 

Torches in hand, stumbling to battle 

I'll call this the source flame just cuz it sounds cool. Anyway, this fire is lit towards the back of the crowd. This is where all the bloodthirsty villagers light their torches before they attack the young guys at the bottom. Eventually it's pushed up to the shrine and used to actually set it on fire. 

The source flame, a shrine and a lantern that reads "Nozawa Onsen" something-or-other 

After the 42-year-old drunkards evacuated and escaped with their lives, they pushed the source flame closer and used it to light the shrine 

The main shrine finally gets going. Burn! 

Some of the banners getting torched 

At the moment the weight of the bonfire gave way and collapsed, I snapped this picture of the massive explosion that ensued. I am about to be smushed by hundreds of people as they try to dash away from the flames. 

One of the shrines being offered up 

Us with the remains of the burning heap behind us