Finding out that a cafe (insert all-too-brief plug for Kiln here) I regular is open until midnight on Sundays was a pleasant surprise, so I decided to kick back after a long-ish week and put some words on the screen. This city keeps finding ways to impress me and I’ve only barely scraped the surface.
Tomorrow marks six months since I arrived in Kyoto. It’s hard to believe that time has flown by so fast. I’ve been unbelievably lucky in my time here so far and I have a number of people to thank for that. In fact, the rest of this post would probably be filled with everyone I have to thank, so I’ll get into the meat and potatoes of this here entry.
Halloween is something that people really get into in Japan. My work office has been Halloween-themed since the start of October. This past Saturday was the unofficial night to go out and celebrate. From what I can understand, celebrating Halloween in Japan consists of drinking a lot and dressing up in crazy costumes… So it’s a bit like any given day or night of the week in Japan when you really think about it.
At work, I took part in a Halloween event that we put on for kids. Six kids, no less. At first I thought “Eh, should be fine.” but these kids were unbelievably enthusiastic about taking part in this Halloween event. I literally could’ve told them to run into a wall because “That’s what we do in Australia for Halloween” and every kid would’ve done it, walked off the concussion, screamed “YAY!” at the top of their lungs and done it again because they couldn’t remember doing it the first time.
Of course, the question you’re all dying to know the answer to is – yes, I did wear a costume. Well, not a full costume, but enough of one. Before the kids event started, I had to teach two business English lessons so formal work attire was also necessary. So I popped out in what brief time I could to find a mask.
I was the goddamn Batman. Cape and face mask. Naturally, all I wanted to do was quote Hank from The Venture Bros. ad infinitum, but alas, I had to talk to kids about Halloween. Two hours later, I was spent. Kids take a shine to me for some reason. Perhaps its because we’re the same mental age. And we both like ice-cream. That’s what I call solid-unless-left-at-room-temperature-for-too-long science.
If I happen to get a hold of some pictures, I will post them in the future.
On one of my days off this week, I headed to one of the larger festivals in Kyoto known as the Jidai Matsuri festival. It’s a long street procession celebrating thousands of years of Japanese history. To give you an idea of how long this procession lasts for, I was standing for 90 minutes and it was still going, so I decided to hike my way home and relax for the afternoon on this given day.
Presenting to you – the most unenthusiastic member of the procession.
He looks kind of like he woke up mid-procession and is wondering how he got there. “WHY DO I HAVE SWORDS? IS THIS A NAPPY? I WAS DREAMING ABOUT PIGEONS FOR FUCK’S SAKE!”
But there were some seriously great costumes and pieces of history on display, such as this cart towed by a massive bull that you could hear 500m away because the wheel was squeaking like all heck and the wood shaking like it was having a fit.
And less I forget, the samurai armor. If Joseph’s Technicolour Dreamcoat was inspired by fuedal era Japan (hurriedly scribbles down ‘musical idea’ on a notepad) we might get something akin to this.
This week also contained a great deal of cooking by my housemate, Nakamura-san. Nabe was on the menu one night, which is a hot clay pot stew of sorts, basically. We had a fish based broth with vegetables. Delicious is an understatement. Once you’re done with all the fish and vegetables, you take the clay pot back to the stove and mix in rice and egg with the broth, making a rice porridge soup of sorts. All of the noms. Another night was shabu shabu, which was using the same pot, but with a portable gas stove underneath, providing us with a hot soup to dip uncooked veggies and meat into. More noms. Here’s the nabe.
Other adventures I got myself into this week…
- the same day I went to Jidai Matsuri, I purchased a small wifi router that is freaking awesome and streaming data doesn’t count towards my cap
- drinking with Greg (nothing unusual there) at a number of our favourite bars in Kyoto with some new company. Good times.
- eating and drinking with my good friend Kirsty from Red Bee days. Good to see her again and meet her folks.
- trying to improve my Japanese.
- not getting into any awkward situations (the fact I consider this an achievement is somewhat perturbing).
- unprompted hour-long Skype session with my parents.
- forgetting to write about the awesome Belgian Beer Bar south of Kyoto Station.
- remembering that I forgot to write about the awesome Belgian Beer Bar south of Kyoto Station.
- having a very vivid dream – so vivid I literally woke up thinking I was in another country and had to give myself time to adjust to the fact that I was actually in Japan.
Until next week, ladies and gents.