6/5 - Suddenly, Festivals, Hundreds of Them

So! Yesterday was Toukasan, today was the Culture Jam at HSU. I have some ghastly sandal-blisters on my feet right now, so I have elected to park my rear in a chair and update.

Somehow I decided bringing my phone to Toukasan was not terribly important, especially given the tiny size of the bag I was carrying. This is probably because it was very early (Vic-time-wise) and I was not in the mindset to think of "phone" as "camera". I'm a horrible tourist. I'll steal a friend's photos at some point, and show you all. For now, you have my word that I looked awesome in my yukata. The festival was cool too, but more importantly, I wore the crap out of that yukata.

While everyone else decided to spend their money trying to win at the absolutely-rigged festival games that were there, I bought a ton of food. Now, twenty dollars' worth of festival food isn't that much, but even considering how wicked overpriced it was compared to everyday Japanese food, six dollars for eight takoyaki seems reasonable to me, who buys Japanese food in America all the time. In any case, the takoyaki (grilled octopus dumpling-things), ikayaki (grilled squid on a stick), and nikuyaki (grilled beef on a stick--this is beginning to sound like an American state fair) were freakin' awesome. Totally worth the price of like 17 ramen cups from the grocery store...

...uh. I'm gonna proceed to not think about that now.

After checking out the temple and before epic-failing at the one darts game I tried, I got my photo taken for a Hiroshima fashion magazine! HOLY CRAP, ALMOST MY LIFE'S DREAM OR WHATEVER. Sadly, I can't find the thing's website, which I'm doubting it has. All my information about it so far has consisted of skimming people's blog-blurbs about it. Anyway, I'll have to go to the bookstore at some point and see if I can't pick me up a copy of the latest issue. Getting a hold of the issue my photo might be in, on the other hand, will be more difficult... considering I have no idea when it comes out, and thus whether I'll still be in Japan then, hurp derp.

Also, later that night, the festivities moved onto Chuuou-doori, and I got to watch what was ostensibly a hip-hop dance recital, but translated to my American brain as a bunch of fifth-grade girls wearing far too little, dancing to a couple English songs that no one must have bothered translating, as they were surely "dancey," but also just staggeringly, awe-inspiringly inappropriate.

Freakin' Kesha. No, I will not spell it with a dollar sign. I was about to freakin' dry-heave, and no one would have had any idea why.

After dragging my battered and obi-choked body back to campus, I was awakened at like 8 this morning with rock music. It wasn't unpleasant, but I still rolled over and slept 'til 11 before throwing pants and jewelry on to make lunch and check out the Culture Jam, which people had been setting up for all weekend. I promptly regretted both making lunch and spending so much money on festival food the night before, 'cause the university kids definitely also sold takoyaki, but for 150 yen instead of 500. Heh. On the bright side, I have two-dollar yakisoba for lunch tomorrow, and the chicken karaage they made was ABSOLUTELY UNPARALLELED BY ANY FRIED CHICKEN DISH KNOWN TO MAN. And it was 150 yen, too.

Japanese college bands, which are way better than American ones, by the way, played right outside the Seminar House 'til like nine, and my host parents even showed up. (They heard the university Hawaiian club was gonna be playing. They assumed it would be Hawaiian music, but they feigned interest in the Hawaiian club's various rock bands, if only for my sake.)

There were a while ton of booths, some of which were selling food (like 40 percent, at least. There was homemade boba tea) and some of which had activities (another darts booth, which I didn't try this time, and an English trivia quiz, which I still did pretty badly at, for example). A bunch of the people I'd met before were happy to see me there. :D

So, yeah, now I've been doing homework for a while. I knocked out my "about Arizona" poster for the sixth-grade class we'll be visiting on Wednesday in like 45 minutes, leaving my other group members to handle the Japanese translation of the hokey-pokey. (Gerard's got my back on this, I bet: ain't no sixth-graders in no first-world country on Earth gonna be excited about the hokey-pokey.)

Baseball game tomorrow! Also, writing a paper! Good thing I've done most of my due-Tuesday homework tonight, not having any due-Monday homework to speak of. Tanaka-sensei is terribly kind that way. :P There's probably something next weekend, too, but I'll try to squeeze an update in before then. Maybe Wednesday night.

Later, adulators,

-Vic