Towada Horse Archery Festival, sans the Horse Archery....

So, there were actually quite a few things we did that windy day in April beyond watch archery competitions (see previous post). It actually was an unusual day, in that there were two entirely different festivals going on at the same time, relatively close to each other. The one I was mostly interested in was the horse festival. However, upon arriving and seeing the main road closed off and Japanese people literally dancing in the streets, well.... I had to investigate. And take videos! Unfortunately there were only two that turned out okay, due to 1. the festival was starting to wind down, 2. the wind was obscene and was interfering with the dance troops, and 3. I couldn't get close due to the amount of people, especially old people, who decided to sit on the sides of the road specifically to impede my video taking prowess. Ah well. Please enjoy the videos at the bottom of the post, such as they are. I tried my best, I'll make sure to go to this festival earlier next year so I see more of the dance troops, since some were truly amazing!


....And also, we found a giant ant statue. Whoo for the giant ant statue!

Towada Horse Archery Festival

A while ago I went to this festival with Aaron, Jade, and her oldest daughter Reo. This actually happened back in early April, but again, I fail at updating this in a timely manner. Oh well, I'm here now, so hush, it'll be alright. ^-^

The title of this post is fairly self-explanatory, but let me add a little bit more detail and history to that one sentence description. Towada city is about 45 minutes away by car, and has a long history, as does most of this area actually, for breeding spectacular war horses many hundreds of years ago. Unfortunately, this awesome history has since turned into a more.... epicurean one, as Towada is now renowned in the area for their delicious horse meat. While that is unfortunate, there is still at least one tie to the good old days: The Towada Horse Archery Festival.
At this festival, people from all around Japan come and dress in traditional clothing, and while riding their horse down a straight track (with no hands!), compete by shooting a wooden bow and arrow into three separate targets. This festival dates back from the war horse era, where warriors often engaged in this type of event for fun and training. Nowadays it's been spruced up a bit, with the traditional festival stalls selling food and sweets, and pony rides for the kiddies. The picture above is Reo partaking of that particular service, while the picture below is of her participating in another cool little event: children's horse archery practice. Pity the horses were of the stationary variety, I'm pretty sure she could've handled the moving kind.

The coolest part of the day was definitely the actual horse races though. I couldn't get any clear pictures of them, since they were moving so fast, so I had to resort to taking videos. I apologize for the plentitude of them below, as well as the white noise (it was incredibly windy that day) but I assure you they are quite worth watching. They are all different riders, but the videos only show the third target, since that is where I was standing. Be aware that they already shot at two separate targets before they even got to me. We did other things on this day too, but that is for the next post, as I'm out of space with this one. Without further ado, I present the following videos, in no particular order. Enjoy!

Random Origami

Because what would life be without random happenings of origami? (Origami, for those not in the know, is the Japanese art of folding pretty paper into shapes of animals, people, things, etc.) I found these in Narita airport, while I was on my way back home to visit... well, you guys, really. I had no idea that origami could be used to make so many different things, so this was pretty impressive to me. Why it was displayed in an airport though, I have no idea. Enjoy!

One Last Thing About the Snow....

So I've had people asking me recently if the snow here is really that bad, and since the snow is no longer piling on top of me as we speak, I feel more inclined to discuss the white stuff. While it's true that there are other cities in this area that get a lot more snow than Sannohe, that doesn't mean that it's for a lack of trying on this town's part. For example, that picture above? That was in one day. Yes, that's right. ONE DAY. There was no snow on the ground 7 hours before this picture was taken, and then the heavens opened, the gods decided to show their displeasure at the beautiful early spring day, and the world went white. That's about a foot and a half of snow you are looking at. So, no, not as bad as other cities, and not as bad as the blizzard which ate half of America this past winter. However, when you go from no snow ever to a foot and a half in one day, it leaves an impression on you. Let's just say that for now I'm glad winter is officially over, and please feel free to enjoy the pictures of my past suffering.

Things I Love About Japan

They make Panzer Dragoon statues here. I never even knew they made these. This is posted for all my die-hard Sega fan friends. ^-^

Towada Lake Winter Festival (Continued)

And we're back! That's the shortest space between posts I think I've ever done. In any case, the last post was just getting impossible to add more pictures into, so continuing on where we left off from.....

Ice buildings! This is an incredibly angry samurai that was carved INTO THE WALL of an ice bar! It was so cool! I wanted to take a picture of the actual bar itself, but there were people drinking there, and I wasn't sure how they would feel about a random foreign woman snapping pictures of them while they are trying to drink their beer in peace. These next pictures, however, are the outside of the other ice bar, which was also a museum inside (it had some arts and crafts displayed on the walls).

And.... it's a Christian church. I don't think anyone explained to the Japanese that just because Christian churches have wine, doesn't mean you're supposed to get drunk inside of them. Oh well. This next picture is a close up of another ice sculpture, which you can see a bit in the picture above. It's two angel joining hands, if you can make that out past the blinding white light they were shining on it....

They also had a snow slide, which was awesome. I wanted to go on it, but two factors prevented me: one, it was mostly populated by children, and I didn't want to squish them, and two, it cost about 5 bucks to rent a little sled. No thank you. But I still took a picture of it, and wished fondly I was 8 years old and had $5 from my parents.


There were also fireworks planned for this evening, but Aaron and I couldn't justify waiting around for an hour before they were supposed to go on. So sadly, I do not have any fireworks pictures. What I do have, however, are pictures of the stage that groups later performed concerts on, and which would be the barrier protecting the crowd from the fireworks that would later shoot up behind it. Words can barely describe how cool this thing was. First of all, let me show it to you:

This picture is blurry, but I chose to include it because it illustrates a point for me; there are people in it for size comparison. This thing is made entirely of snow. Look at it in comparison to the people again, and then I will remind you, again, that it is made ENTIRELY out of snow. And yet, this does not even begin to cover the coolest parts of it. First:

it has a samurai carved into it. An angry samurai, which actually makes it just that much cooler. And then, most importantly, second:

it has a dragon carved into the left side of the stage. Let me reiterate this: IT HAS A DRAGON! Why? Because it's Japan, that's why, and Japan is awesome. Look forward to more posts soon! I forgot to mention in the previous post that April, despite being insanely busy, is also the time when the cherry blossoms bloom.... That should be happening next week, and you can bet I will have amazing pictures of them. For now, I hope you enjoyed looking at pictures of snow. I confess that I've had enough with snow this year. I should be ready again for more in about a year from now....

Towada Lake Winter Festival

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