Not Just Ninjas

Man, Noshiro is like a ghost town on sundays… possibly other days too, not sure yet. If I lived in a town where it was snowy 5 months out of the year, I would definitely be out on a gorgeous (if hot and humid) sunny day like today. It makes me wonder… where my peeps at?

Chris and I spent the morning familiarizing ourselves with the neighborhood. We wandered into shops in the neighborhood, shopped at the local discount store, and found internet access. The local department store has some tasty restaurants on its top floor, where Chris and I shared the bowl of Udon he’s been so desperately craving. Thank god for those little plastic displays of food out front or we would be lost.

Since there was no one out on the streets, I had to take initiative. It was time to meet the neighbors. I looked out my upstairs window (which is like 3 feet from my neighbor’s window) and saw a little boy watching television. When the commercials come on, I play it all cool and yell out (in japanese)… “Hey, excuse me, can you tell me what time it is?”. Said boy (7ish in age?) runs off and comes back, and I introduce myself. My conversational Japanese is quite limited right now, but we made it work. I made him go and fetch his sister so I could meet her too. I dug out a few omiyage I had brought and tossed over a little racecar, a little hula girl, and a lucky penny keychain (for an absent brother), hopefully endearing myself to them forever.

The evening festival was cool, if straightforward. There was a little parade down the streets with these huge “fighting fish” floats made of paper and lit from within. The tops were hinged so that they could bow beneath electrical wires. I think there were more people in the parade than watching from the sidelines. :) Everyone not pulling the floats were either going crazy jumping around and hitting drums or playing this little flute ditty over and over again. I finally tried one of the hot dogs and some very exciting looking pink and yellow ice cream that tasted like bubblegum. Tomorrow the tops of the floats (Stephen Colbert voice: the fightin’ fish!) will be floated down the river and set on fire.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 6th, 2006 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Ambiance, Festivals and Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.