Sanno-heyyy

It came. It saw. And then it left...The weekend, that is.

Takko's float at Nagawa's matsuri

While it didn't seem that way at the time, this weekend just seemed to fly by. In fact, all time seems to be flying by. We just started September and yet, we're already about half way through it. What's going on here?

Saki and me in front of Takko's float.

Anyway, this weekend was chalked up to be pretty mellow: Sannohe Matsuri on Saturday and Takko Sports Day on Sunday. Well, the weather had different plans for us altogether. It poured all day Saturday, which not only forced the matsuri to cancel that day's parade, but also made everything too wet for Sunday's sports day. With a slight change of plans and in order to avoid hanging out in my house for the entire weekend (even though I probably could have benefited from that), I spent the majority of the weekend in Sannohe enjoying their town's festival.

Ayumi (left) with other Takko
people on their float in Nagawa

Earlier in the week, I went to Nagawa's matsuri and like with most everything around here, I had no idea what to expect. Ayumi was dancing on what I later found out to be a float and I wasn't about to say no to festival food, so off I went! I put two and two together when I went to Sannohe's matsuri and observed that the floats were nearly identical to each other. Apparently, it is common for this time of year for the town to have a festival with floats decorated in this particular style (see picture) and for the entire town to be involved with decorating the floats and pulling them through the parade route. Naturally, because it's Japan and there has to be a winner, each float is judged and the appropriate ones are given their prizes. These parades are traditions that have been held for hundreds of years, so no matter rain or shine, the parades must go on. (Note: I was informed that Takko used to hold a festival similar to these a long time ago but due to budget cuts, the festival was cancelled. But let's be real, if they had to choose, Garlic & Beef Festival would always win, hands down)

Kendal, Mieko and me with KEN:
a mascot for the human rights
movement in Japan...

Saturday's rain struck fear into the hearts of all Sannohe-ians because they knew that if the torrential downpour continued into Sunday, they'd still have to be out there lugging a huge float through town. Luckily, they were blessed by Buddha with perfect weather for pulling floats: overcast and cool, but no rain. I had visited the evening before to check out the scene and to get myself some yaki soba, of course, and decided to return the next day if the sports day in town was cancelled (which it was).

We made sure to save
our spots on the bridge...

Nanbu Ben swooped me up the next afternoon and we headed to Sannohe. Both Ulu and Kendal were working in one capacity or another, but Ulu was able to temporarily ditch her duties and hang out with us. Sannohe is all of about 10 minutes away from Takko, so it was inevitable that I would run into people I knew (or in some cases, just knew me...awkward). We couldn't walk two steps without someone smiling and waving at us. We kept going back and forth asking each other who that wave was for and more than once did it turn out that it was a random act of greeting from someone in the crowd. It happens on the regular, so it wasn't surprising at all; however, it was nerve-racking making sure I wasn't just waving and smiling all casually to someone I actually knew. My facial recognition was on high that day to make sure I didn't miss anyone.

It's like a Where's Waldo for gaijin...
Where's Kendal?

After picking up a couple of choco-bananas and being handed a beer simply because I was a gaijin, we headed over to the restaurant to get some real food and then ran up the hill to Sannohe koto gakko (high school) so Ulu could sign out for the day. After some careful consideration and discussion, it was decided to end the night with some karaoke in Takko Town. I left hoping that people in my town wouldn't judge me for going out on a Sunday night and learning that the bar near my house (Wioli) charges by the karaoke song...9,000円 later, we learned to take it easy next time.

Sannohe Matsuri

With another weekend down, I'm anxiously anticipating this coming weekend's events. There's promise of a trip to Shimoda mall and a definite trip to Misawa's Air Show on the US military base. That means Taco Bell for those of us who are Mexican food-deprived (to my Californian readers, I do realize that TB does not qualify for Mexican food but when it's been over two months, you're going to take what you can get...). To top it off, we might even slip some karaoke in there at one point or another.

Bohemian Rhapsody...what part of
the song are we at here?

Coming Up: Renee arrives in 9 days!!! She will be my first official visitor to Takko and we (and by we, I mean the entire town of Takko and me) are excited for her arrival. Reeni chan, we're waiting for you!

Weather Update: Aki (fall) has arrived in the blink of an eye, but take that quite literally. One day we were all wearing shorts and perpetually sweating due to the high temps and humidity and then woke up the next day to semi-overcoast, cool and breezy weather. This gaijin is not complaining. I am typically a big fan of fall weather, but I have never been so happy to have it finally arrive.

New fav term: gaijin smash (noun or verb): a term that refers to gaijin (foreigners) that do something they know isn't allowed but know they can get away with it because they're foreign.

Example: 

"There's a sign blocking the road. Can we still go through?"

"Sure, let's just gaijin smash it."

PS: Rode out a magnitude 4 earthquake while writing this entry...