Crocs!

Crocs, the company from Niwot, Colorado, makes shoes that are now becoming quite popular in Japan. As a thank you gift to all of my friends in Oguni, I decided to buy everyone Crocs. They are all different colors, which made it feel like opening a bag of brightly-colored candy when I opened the box. A box of Crocs.

Mom's Birthday

For Mom's birthday, we ate Chinese food at Shu-Ho, near Hikari no Mori. The food was delicious and abundant. The restaurant also has some mascots, some pet chipmunks that live in its interior garden. It was a nice birthday, even though Mom doesn't want to get any older.

Boshita

Every September in Kumamoto City, Fujisaki Shrine holds a festival marking a military victory against Korea that took place around 400 years ago. In the morning, a procession leaves the shrine, as if going to war. And in the afternoon and evening all of the groups in the procession return, dancing and chanting, with drums and cymbals. The focus for many people is the horse that leads all of the groups. This year there were 48 separate groups, all brought together based on some commonality, such as being graduates of a particular school, living in a particular neighborhood, belonging to a particular business organization, or working in the same company. Each of the groups has a horse that wears a costume and is pulled through the city. Upon entering the main gate to the shrine, the handlers do their best to incite the horse to kick and run in circles. Essentially the men are teasing the horse to get it excited. This year I even saw some young men throwing small snapping fireworks at their horse to annoy it. The horses resist, of course, and in doing so, excite the men to torture the horses even more. It's not always easy to watch this, but there are huge crowds that brave the heat, and this year the rain, to watch their friends in the parade and witness horses being treated very poorly.

Someday I would like to research this festival and see how it fits into a larger story about how Japanese relate to horses. They are pets for riders, but also eaten raw as a delicacy. Horses have a long and complicated relationship with people in Japan, one which I think would make for a fascinating book.

Visit to Amakusa

Last week Hisako and I took what is probably our last trip to the beach. We took the day off and drove to Mogushi beach in Amakusa. The water was incredibly warm, almost too warm, and we had the beach all to ourselves. We relaxed in the water for a few hours and then drove to Hondo for dinner.

We went to Amakusa-mura, an izakaya that I used to frequent with Kellie and Mark from my old JET days. Unfortunately, the owner was on holiday that day. I took a photo, but it wasn't the same as the old memories we had there.

New Apartment

At the end of August, we moved into this new apartment in Kumamoto City. From now, Hisako will be working at an office downtown, and I will be writing at Kumamoto University.

This day was great because Hisako's parents and Chigusa came to help clean the apartment. It's a little noisy here, and it's warmer here than Oguni, but it's a great location.

A few days later we had our first party at our new apartment. Hopefully, it won't be our last party here.

Farewell to Oguni

In the last few weeks of August we had to say goodbye to Oguni and move to Kumamoto City. We spent some of the time packing, but we also took the time to visit some places we'd never been and spend time with friends that we will definitely miss.

One place we went was Manma, an izakaya in Oguni that is excellent. One thing we especially like about it is that the countertop is covered with the dishes of the day, making it feel like a Spanish tapas bar. The beer was cold and delicious and the food was incredible. Thank you for inviting us, Kiku.

We also had a goodbye dinner with Watanabe and Mika in Manganji. The restaurant was an addition tacked on between a home and its storage shed, as one of the interior walls was the outside of the shed. The owner is energetic and talkative, and a few days later we saw him on television, bathing in the local onsen when some celebrities arrived.

We also traveled around the area to say farewell to our friends at different ryokan. We'll definitely return someday.

Yuusuikyo

Thursday night Chigusa and Yukari were able to visit from Kumamoto City and stay the night with us. We had a great dinner, made by Hisako, then played Settlers of Catan. It was the first time for both of them to play, and I think they really enjoyed it.

The next day, Friday the 17th, Hisako made a huge picnic lunch and we all four went to Yuusuikyo, an outdoor park of sorts. It is a river-based camp area and park. The riverbed itself is unique in that it is a slab of rock. In other words, it is not rocks, pebbles, or mud, but one large slab of rock on which people can walk. The river flows fast but is only 2 or 3 inches deep. This means people can walk the length of the river, against the flow if you want. It's quite a unique experience and is different from any other river I've been to.

The most fascinating thing about this place is that if one thinks about it too much, it could be seen as very dangerous. Small children are free to run around on a gently sloping riverbed in water that is fast and a surface that is slippery in places. This means kids often fall, sometimes hitting their heads. If I were a parent, I would like to think that I would relax and let my children run wild. However, I can imagine a parent wanting to constantly watch, as if waiting for a train wreck, constantly yelling, "Don't run, don't push, be careful, don't walk over there, look out!" But here, kids play in what some would consider a high risk place, and parents sit back and let them play. There are no lifeguards, no safety precautions, no rules. It was wonderfully refreshing, both the cold water on my feet and watching kids play like kids. I told the others that this place would be shut down in minutes in the U.S.

Here is the webpage for Yuusuikyo: (in Japanese) http://www.yado.co.jp/camp/kumamoto/yuusuikyo/

Here are some photos of the river and our lunch.