Golden Week

Today it is rainging so a great time to update the blog. This morning I enjoyed a tea ceremony and Festival in Nagai but now I am bored at home hiding from the rain. I know I am always way behind in posting these. But here is an update of what Becky, Chelsea and I got up to in Yamagata during the Golden week festivities! I had a good amount of vacation time so we were able to explore many different parts of Nagai and Yamagata and enjoy the company of many of my Japanese students, coworkers and friends. Having the gals hang around in Nagai with me was super fun, we rented a car (yay I got to drive in Japan) and biked a lot. The car gave me a great sense of freedom and while biking we we able to enjoy the beautiful mountain scenery Nagai has to offer.
My favorite day we had was on Saturday. In the morning we visited my Boss, Tomohide's temple. He is a monk and it was the first time I had seen the inside of his Temple. It was convenient because then they invited us over for a yaki-soba and tempura dinner. mmmm...delicious is all I have to say. Afterwards we met up with Rebecca and went for a fresh soba lunch then headed to the mountain by bike to visit Yuji's family's toy factory. They make traditional Japanses Kendama toys. It is a pretty tricky toy but definitely fun to try even though I am not very good at it. Becky picked it up quite fast and became a master of Kendama!

Yuji's grandmother hard at work. She was super sweet and made a pink Kendama for Becky to buy because they didn't have any ready. Pink and light blue are new colours for the business.

As you can see I have a lot of practice to do! Here we are with Yoshi and Chikako after a very intensive night of drinking at Waraji, a pretty sweet izakaya in town. Chelsea was a super challenger and ate raw squid and octopus! SCARY!

Iyumi's wedding ceremony. We were late and missed most of the ceremony because I got lost driving in Yonezawa, but we still enjoyed seeing her dressed so beaulifully in traditional Japanese wedding gown. We learned that most Japanese brides wear three wedding dresses in the day. Japanese style, western style both white and then one other dress with colour.

The second major highlight of the week had to be was a re-enactment battle scene from Japan's Feudal era in Yonezawa city. Apparantly something like 150,000 people went to watch the festival that day. It was crazy busy driving in the city, but well worth it!