October

October, October, who would not love October...

One night I was just sitting at home minding my own business when I hear what sounds like the beating of drums and chanting. So naturally i went to the balcony and i saw a float going by carried by a baunch of guys. so i got dressed and ran after them. I managed to catch up and i met this little boy who's mamiko's friends son (one of the kids i went to the beach with) and we followed the float to junpu where i met mamiko and she told me they were carrying the float to the festival grounds for the next day. In the morning I went to the festival one town over with Mamiko. From what I could understand it is for Autumn and a good harvest. Some of our students were at the festival too. We saw Chie and her sister Mika was a drummer in one of the floats and Yuta was helping to carry one of the floats and his sister Ayumi was a drummer in their float. What happens is this: depending on where you live there are clubs of guys and maybe girls i think and everyone where's the same colour little shirt thingy... it could be a yukata but i'm not entirely sure... and all these guys, young and old, that for the most part seem to be entirely drunk hoist this huge float (a minaturized shrine) made out of wood onto their shoulders and carry it around the temple three times. Each time they go around they take a turn lifting part of the float into the temple and doing this thing with a temple guy which i can only assume is same kind of prayer and they lift it over their heads and jump around and make a lot of noise. PLUS their are like four children (of the size of like 8 year olds) inside this shrine float that they're carrying around beating this big drum. It's crazy... i was very proud of my student who was helping carry the float. There are all of these old men sitting in a huge line of chairs in front of the temple watching the guys carrying the floats and they seem to be a little board and they seem to be maybe a comittee or something overseeing the ceremony. It was really cool and my first local festival. We ate fried chicken and cheese poof fried doughy things that were really good.

I went to Osaka because I was out of Oatmeal and there is a foreign foods store there. I ended up buying skirts... well oatmeal too. I had fun trying on pretty things and drinking coconut bubble tea... i've gotten used to those chewy boogeryish tapicoa brown bubbles and i don't even spit them out anymore.

I went up the mountain at the park in Suma. I love Suma park. I had to take a cable car up the first bit and at first i was all smug like 'oh this is nothing' and then we got up a little higher and higher and i started getting a little nervous like 'well this is pretty high'. The next part was this little elevator type contraption where you had to sit in a chair built for two (the man was quite surprized that it was just me) and a conveyor part takes you up another little way. Then i got off and there was a park and a lookout place with a game centre and a restaurant and lookout deck which was really just the roof. I sat in the park for a while and it was just like fall. The leaves were all browny orange and crunchy scattered all over the ground and it was kind of crisp but not too cold and everything seemed clear and beautiful and just right. I sat at a little picnic table across from the slide where all the kids were playing. I started reading another Hemingway book but Ican't remember the title right now... it had something to do with ...Sunrise... i'm finished it now... it wa spretty good it was about these American's living in Paris that decide to go to Spain to see the bull fights and all their sordid love affairs. Hemingway is a lot different than I thought... first of all he wrote in the 30's and i thought he was a lot older than that and his writing style is a lot more straight forward and easy to read than i thought... he reminds me of jack kerouac and a lot of the beat generation writers and a even little bit of steinbeck. anyways, i sat there and began hemingway and ate oranges (left over from when i went to the park in akashi that i had put in the freezer... tangelos are sooo yummy from the freezer) and it was quite nice. mostly probably because it was a perfect day, but maybe partly because i always feel like starting a book is kind of sacred and the first page is always my favorite (best first page this year was lolita). and there were all these stray cats (apparently they have a problem with that in japan) and two of them started running around and fighting and screeching away and scared the bajeeberz out of me. after a while i decided to go to the little park accross the way so i took the chair lift thingy over the gap. the chair thing was really just a chair... no straps, bells, or whistles, that you sat on while it took you over the mountain... really it wasn't that far or high off the ground, but i found it a little daunting being the me that i am... anyways i saw a little kid on it so i figured i must do it. i think it helped that it was painted with bright colours. on the other side there were a series of little ledges and gardens running down the mountain and paths through the woods that took you up. at the middle level there was this ride where you go on a manual two-person bicycle and pedal it along this track thats raised up above the ground on a bunch of stilts. At first when i went up to go on and headed straight back down and shook my head and said no way! it was because although most of the track isn't too scary because there are all these bushes and stuff under it so it doesn't really seem like you're off the ground, part of the track doesn't have anything under it and it's the part looking down the mountain so all you can see is the city and the sea and the long long way down the mountain below you. i took a walk around and say some really pretty purple flowers and peeked into a bamboo grove just beyond a community garden and then i made up my mind to go on the ride... i mean i came all this way. so i climbed the stairs and paid my $2 and the man strapped my in and tied my bag up and off i pedaled. after the initial heart thumping it wasn't bad at all, it was actually pretty wonderful. the part that seemed scary was really cool; since there's nothing under you except the sky it's like you're riding a bicycle on air. it reminded me of the part in E.T. when E.T. and that boy ride up to the moon. i went around twice and my favorite part was the part where i got to ride in the air and look at the ocean which was so pretty with sun sparkling all over it. There was a part in the park where it was kind of like a little ledge path covered with grass and i went there and laid down and read for a little while and i don't know why but for some reason it reminded my of alice in wonderland and the part with the queen of hearts and how she got really mad about her rose bushes and wanted to cut everyone's heads off. oh! it was because when i was on the bicycle there were these flower bushes underneath me at one part that reminded me of rose bushes and made my thing of alice and the queen of hearts. when i heard an announcment that i thought might have been saying the park was closing i made my way back down the mountain and off to akashi to meet mamiko, ayako, nami, and john for dinner and drinks. it was a good night. we went to this restaurant/bar that mamiko knew from one of the mom's from amity and ate a yummy dinner and had drinks... i had a little but strong margharita, and then we went to this bar that was sooo small. it was very very thin.. haha, it was so funny. and it was a rasta bar and the bartender was a dj and it was really cool and nice and comfy we all quite liked it.

anyways i gotta go cause the cute guy in the apron just informed me they were closing but i will finish up october and post pictures later

see you later alligator