So, I fail as a blogger. I feared this would happen. I should've known that real life would intrude into my free time too much sometimes for me to keep this updated constantly. What is done is done, however, and all I can do now is renew my attempt at keeping this a weekly thing. So, once more, with feeling! My biggest impediment to keeping this updated recently has been the season. Spring is the time of changes in Japan. The school year goes from April to March here, meaning that the end of March is filled with extensive testing, graduation ceremonies, teachers running around looking as if they are about to topple over from stress, and staff changes too! (Japanese school boards randomly shuffle around about 2-3 teachers per school, and assign them to teach at a different school. They get about a weeks notice of this, which just adds to the crazy-making.) Also, nothing is official in Japan until there is a party celebrating it, so add in graduation and farewell parties into the mix. It does not end there, however. April is the start of the new school year, which means this month is filled with extensive testing, entrance ceremonies, teachers running around looking as if they are about to topple over from stress, etc..... In short, March/April is the probably the busiest time of year for Japanese educational system employees, and I was not immune to this fact.
But let us cast our thoughts upon an earlier, less hectic, less crazy-making time period: February! When snow still covered the ground in sheets of white, and there was a festival up by Towada Lake to celebrate this fact. The Towadako Fuyu Monogotari Matsuri, or the Lake Towada Winter Story Festival, is an annual event that is well-known in these parts. Above you can see a picture of said lake, with snow covering the beach. Surprisingly the lake doesn't ever freeze over, although I'm not sure why. It was certainly cold enough.... Aaron and I were unfortunate in that we decided to go on what turned out to be the coldest day of the year. It was a balmy -15 degrees..... centigrade. That's about 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Whee!
I ended up being glad we braved the cold, though. We couldn't stand to be there more than about an hour before we thought we were going to freeze in place where we stood, but it was a beautiful festival, and an amazing experience. The picture above is the entrance into the festival area. Those are snow walls, with holes dug in strategic locations with lights placed inside to guide your way. The whole place was actually really creatively lit. They also had these things too:
These are actually Japanese fishing glass balls. Fishermen tie their nets to these, which are capable of floating because of the air trapped inside the glass ball. They must have broken these open and put lights inside the bottom. In any case, they were incredibly beautiful, and they lit the path up to the nearby shrine if you wanted a break from the craziness of the festival. They also had these:
This picture is dark, and I apologize for that, but they had these snow mushroom type thingies everywhere. These also had lights inserted into them. These particular ones led the way to the bathroom, but they are still pretty!
The festival itself is basically a festival of snow, and how cool it can be. Thus, besides the normal festival food fare, it also showcases ice sculptures, snow sculptures, igloos, an ice bar, and a snow slide! The picture above is of one of the first things you see as you enter the festival grounds, the ice sculptures. My camera didn't know what to focus on, so unfortunately these blurry pictures don't do them justice, but they were incredibly cool. Below are the rest of the ice sculptures (at least the ones where the picture turned out half decent).
I think the fish one was my favorite. ^-^ They also had various igloos! Unfortunately, a lot of these weren't lit up too well, so the pictures I took showed... nothing. This was the only one that turned out at least a little bit, but there were lots more. Each igloo was made by a different hotel or business in the area, and you could actually go inside them all. Some even had chairs where you could sit and drink tea for a bit! It was surprisingly warm in them... I have no idea how, but I finally admit that maybe Eskimos can live in them. Inside of them was definitely warmer than outside of them, at least.
And with that, I have decided that this post has become too picture heavy. To be continued in the next post, to follow momentarily! :D
No comments:
Post a Comment