Muroto and the Yosakoi Festival

Greetings Earthlings,

It's been an eventful few days. Friday night, Alex and Naomi (second-year JET who lives in Umaji, a tiny village up in the mountains, population: 1000) came to Aki and the three of us went for okonomiyaki, which is basically a Japanese pancake-type thing. She and Alex were planning on going to Muroto, the south-easternmost city in Kochi prefecture, on Saturday to check out some of the sights, and I decided to come with. The next day, Naomi picked me up, but ambitious Alex decided to try to bike from Tano to Muroto... in the heat... without sunblock... and without having eaten anything that morning. (He got about 1/3 of the way there before he called us to come pick him up.)

When we got to Muroto, we went to go visit Ben and Huw, the two new Muroto JETs (they're both from Australia... I was envious of all the Aussies at orientation because they weren't jetlagged, but it's gotta be rough going from winter to summer so suddenly). We chatted with them for a while, then Huw joined us in our exploration of Muroto.

Our first stop was an observation point.





It was a bit of a climb, but what a view!


(From left to right: Naomi, Huw, and Alex.)











Then, we decided to check out an abandoned building that used to be some kind of reception hall.























It was pretty cool, but as it was full of spiders and probably asbestos, I doubt I'll be going back.






After stopping for ice cream (which actually turned out to be this weird banana-flavored ice), we walked to the lighthouse.




(Supposedly it's the biggest lens in Japan or something.)

Then we headed to Hotsumisakiji Temple. There are 88 temples on the island of Shikoku. Sixteen of those are in Kochi prefecture, and three of those are in Muroto. It's not uncommon to see pilgrims on the side of the road dressed in white, with sedge hats and walking sticks, trekking their way around the island to see all 88.




















Sunday was supposed to be the first day of the Yosakoi Festival, an annual festival held in Kochi City where teams of dancers compete. All the dances involve wooden clappers called naruko and have to include part of the original "Yosakoi Naruko Dancing" song, but the teams are free to be creative with the rest of the musical arrangement and the dancing itself.

Unfortunately, the festival got rained out. At first, only the fireworks got canceled but the rest of the festival was still on. So I took a train from Aki station...


...to Kochi station...


...and walked to where the JETs were supposed to meet up. No one was there, and after calling a few people I found out that apparently everything got canceled for Sunday.

Great.

So I shuffled back on over to the train station and headed back to Aki.

Despite having spent ¥2300 and two hours on a train for no reason, I was still determined to see the festival, so I (along with Matt) took off work Monday (we get three days of "summer leave" that we have to use by the end of the month, so why not?)

We stopped for lunch at Rock Green Cafe, which is owned by a friend of Matt's named Hiroshi (picture a Japanese hippie).


Another amazing view of the coast:


Then we drove to Nankoku to pick up Kate and took a train into Kochi City (it would have been way too hectic to drive with all the festival hoopla going on).



(Really?)



Then we made our way over to the festival!








































That's all for now. Dinner with Matt and Kym at Yourou later tonight, and prefectural orientation (yes, yet another orientation) in Kochi City Thursday and Friday.

Peace,
B