Life in Fukuoka, Japan

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Golden Week

My first Golden Week in Japan. We had a three day school week this week. The other days are holidays to celebrate Golden Week. Golden Week is a big celebration, shopping and travel time in Japan. They celebrate two days for Boys' Day and one day for Children's Day. (This is at least what was explained to me from my community center, friends and my hairdresser. All very reliable.) I know when I looked up Golden Week it did say there was a little more to it, but let's keep it simple.

Mark, unfortunately, has been sick for most of the holiday. He did go and administer the SAT test yesterday, but other than that he has had to lay low and get lots of rest. Today, Sunday, Mark is feeling much better. Hopefully, tomorrow he will be able to get out of the house.

I have been going out and seeing the activities that have been going on around our apartment area. For those of you who do not remember, I live in Meinohama. Meinohama is one area of Fukuoka. Meinohama has a nice sized train station. Friday morning I saw them setting up an entertainment area in front of the station. I did not know what was going on, but I ventured out to see what was happening.

There were many booths set up to sell food, drinks and other items. There were games for the kids and balloons to fill with water. The stage that had been set up had different groups performing on it throughout the day. I watched many of them. There were older women, young children and all ages in between. It was very entertaining to hear the music that some of the dancers were performing to. There were young pom pom dancers who were dancing to "Dirty Love". When the song used the "F" word, I knew there was no way they knew what the song was saying or what it was about.

On Saturday I was to participate in a parade with my community center where attend Japanese lessons. I was to arrive at 8:30 in order to be dressed in a yukata (a summer kimono). I have some photos of the outfit. Once all of the women and men were dressed we headed out. We ended up standing around for quite a bit of time. We had to walk from our community center all the way to Nishijin for the performance. What performance is that? Well, the dances that we all had to perform. Before you all get too excited, I only learned 1 and 1/2 of the 4 dances. We were only given a 30 minute class to learn them. That was last weekend, so we had 30 minutes a week ago. It wasn't pretty. As foreigners we do get a lot of looks.

Once the parade was over we headed back to change. Then I was off to the pottery class. This class was very hands on compared to last week's class. We were able to smooth out our pieces. I had to do Mark's since he was not able to attend. I used a cherry blossom stamp to make the prints on it. Once it is fired I can go back and glaze it. I am looking forward to seeing the finished pieces. You will see some photos below.

Today, Sunday, I had a hair appointment...no more gray. I also went to the store to buy ingredients so I can make some homemade enchiladas. I have to have my Mexican food on Cinco de Mayo.

Enjoy the photos. I will post more another day.

My apartment is the tall white building. This all was going on right on my street.

Bento box helpers.

Bento box decorations.

Clammers in the river right next to my school.

My school, FIS.

Float

Crowd at the event at Meinohama station.

Hawaiian dancers.

Getting ready for the Meinohama parade.

Aloha!. How cute it the little dancer?

Little kids performing.

George and Kamlesh are all dressed and ready to go.

I am dressed and ready. (The hat was tied under my chin and it was so tight and itchy.)

Performer

Pom Pom dancers

Nishijin parade area.

Performer

Irene with some "characters".

Six spirits all ready for the Hawks baseball season and Boys' Day.

Dancer

Fan dance

Vishwany

Ready to go

Vishwany and Kamlesh

Vishwany and Corina

Waiting to start (Don't you love our hats?)

Parade entertainment

Poppies at the station near my house.

Mark's flowerpot

Gandhali hard at work.

Gandhali's beautiful pot.

Ritsu (our art teacher) is on the left.

Gorgeous sunset

Same sunset. It looks like a big planet.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Birthday Weekend

This weekend I celebrated my birthday. It was such a nice treat to have two days to celebrate it. I was able to celebrate April 6th in Japan, and then the following day in the U.S. I didn't do anything extra special this weekend, but it was a great weekend.

Yesterday, April 6th (in Japan) I went to my Japanese class and then came home to wait for Mark to get home from putting together the playhouse we bought for the school. (We, the elementary student council, not Mark and myself.)

It rained all morning and once I got home from my class I thought it would clear up a bit so Mark and I could get out and do a few things. No such luck. We decided just to cook our own lunch. We were hoping to go to my favorite restaurant, Il Forno, but no luck. I wasn't up for walking in the rain.

I did have a surprise when my friend, Corina, had her husband deliver beautiful tulips and a birthday cake to my house. George was such a trooper to ride his scooter in the pouring down rain to brighten up my birthday. The tulips were so beautiful, and the cake was chocolate heaven!!!

Mark and I had our massages in the evening. We then watched Grimm. How I just love that show. If you haven't seen it, you should really check it out. Very clever...

Today, April 6th in the U.S. I received a ton of birthday wishes. Mark and I went to Tenjin to watch Leon Keer work on his D art. He is very famous for all of the 3D art he paints around the world. I was looking forward to seeing one in person. He is still working on it so I didn't get to see the finished painting. I am hoping to go tomorrow after work. Luckily, it is right out one of the exits at the Tenjin Station.

We also went to Starbucks and had a nice, warm and delicious drink. Mine of course, was a soy chai latte. Yum. After we visited Starbucks we walked around the flower festival that is also being held in Tenjin. The festival runs from April 6th through April 14th. They have flower planter/yard designs set up all around a park. The flowers are so colorful and beautiful. They have over 100,000 tulips in the displays. We are hoping that the weather is nicer next weekend so we can go and walk around longer.

We stopped back by Leon Keer's painting to see how much progress he has made. It was getting there.....more to see tomorrow or Tuesday.

We left and headed home. We were going to go to Il Forno for lunch, but I decided I didn't want to go that far out of my way. I then choose to go to Freshness Burger to have lunch. No one could have prepared me for what I was about to experience. I went up to order my bean burger (which may sound terrible, but it was so soooo delicious) and was told that they no longer carried it. I had just been there a couple weeks earlier. It was such a sad and disappointing trip. I will never be able to go there again, or at least not until they change their menu again. Boo hooooo.

Mark and I then went to Mr. Kebab. I do love the food at Mr. Kebab, too. It was just sad since I was really looking forward to my Freshness Burger. I guess I will never "be nature" again. My favorite restaurants are now Il Forno, Mr. Kebab and Suraj.

I have posted some photos from today. There are also a few other photos from this week.

More to come this week,

Mindi