Goodbye Sushi, Hello Burritos!

Jacob and I are off for a two-week vacation/adventure/reunion back home in the United States tomorrow!  I can't believe that we've finished almost a year of living and working abroad here in Japan, and that we've made a completely different lifestyle for ourselves here!  At the same time, it will be great seeing friends, family, NASCAR shirts, and mullets once again back home for a bit (not to mention heeding the call of my 10-year high school reunion)!  

Thiessen Twosome Does Japan will be back in August with a whole new year of our life in the far east!  Happy Summer!  またね！

All Work and All Play

A Japanese high school tradition for many, the school festival is an amazing production of creativity, talent, teamwork, stamina, and exhaustion.  The entire school is completely transformed.  Students rehearse plays, practice songs and dances, paint, create, and collaborate for four weeks in advance (and sometimes more) in preparation for the three-day event:

Each class for each grade chooses a theme, which is carried out throughout their festival performances and displays.  This theme can be seen in their class t-shirts, their classroom designs, the plays that they write and perform, and these amazing 3-D banners that are hung in our canteen...it's seriously incredible what these kids can create out of cardboard, paper, and paint:

The first night of the festival is the Utapon singing competition.  The entire school is divided into eight teams which choose a song to chant, dance to, and perform.  I was asked to be one of the Utapon judges, and had my first chance to debut in Japanese yukata (light summertime kimono).  The students REALLY seemed to like my new look (I have some great pics with them, but have to keep their faces off of the internet...boo!):

Afterwards, an amazing display of fireworks out on the track help to officially start the festival:

Saturday, the day is spent watching class play performances, as well as some incredibly produced class advertisements and comedy spots (produced and projected by the technology students in-between class plays).  Final preparations are then made for the biggest day, Sunday, when the school is opened up to the public.  This day was the craziest...at 8 in the morning, most of the students, teachers, and many parents were already at school cooking, cleaning, and getting ready for the 10am opening:

Perhaps the best display of cardboard and creativity are the classrooms themselves.  Each class, as I said, chooses a theme to roll with, and then completely transforms their classroom into its respective roll.  These are opened up to the public like a carnival, with each classroom selling a service (food, photo booth photos, gun-shooting games, haunted house, tote bags, etc.) in order to raise money for their class.  Just a few of these wonders:

This room was selling hand-decorated flip-flops:

No beer, just ice cream and some sweet designing at Haratomo's Bar:

Selling cream puffs, Belgium waffles, and flavored sodas and this park-inspired room.  Note the cardboard grass:

Coolest cardboard floor...a 1950s-inspired hamburger stand!

Japanese zen garden:

Besides club and department presentations and demonstrations (it is, afterall, essentially an advertisement to prospective students for our school), Sunday is also the day to showcase non-school related talents such as rock bands, beat-boxing, stand-up comedy, singing, and my favorite, break-dancing:

The school band, finishing off the day with yet another marvelous performance:

While I have to say that school festival was definitely one of the most exhausting aspects of my job to date, it was incredible seeing something come together like this, especially as every part of it is 100% student produced and directed!  It's definitely grassroots effort at its ultimate!

Lake Toya

This past weekend Steph and I traveled down south to beautiful Lake Toya for our summer HAJET (Hokkaido Association of JETs) camping meeting.  Lake Toya is an amazingly clear volcanic caldera lake with four small islands in the middle, and surrounded by a still-active volcano and numerous hot springs.  The 2008 G8 Summit was held there last year as well. 

Paired with the gorgeous weather it made for an amazing weekend trip out of Sapporo.

A whole new take on Band Camp:

One of the cool things about the Lake Toya area are all of the sculptures and instillations surrounding its perimeter.  Just a few:

The open campgrounds made it feel like we had set up tent on a soft, green park-lawn, surrounded by mountains, rice paddies, farms and fields, and, of course, Lake Toya itself:

HAJET events are always a good time to catch up with old friends and fellow JETs from around Hokkaido.  In addition, we had sumo champions...

...lots of yummy food and bevs...

...good times around the campfire...

...and, of course, sparklers and fireworks:

Now I finally have that dirty, tired, sunburnt demeanor of summer that we all know and love!  With all of the hiking, swimming, onsening, and camping to be had, we're already planning our next excursion down to Toya, hopefully sometime within Hokkaido's short, short summer.

Yosakoi Soran Matsuri

Last weekend, the entire city of Sapporo had mad dancing fever for the annual Yosakoi Soran Festival. Yosakoi consists of hardcore, dynamic dancing, and Soran is the traditional, rhythmical Hokkaido fisherman's song to which the performers dance. The song has been varied and modified to become extremely fast-paced and energetic.

Teams of 30-150 begin practicing (some everyday!!) back in March and April. The basic rules of the Yosakoi dance is that it must include Soran music, use of the traditional clappers, and have 100 meter advance dancing for the parade. The rest is up to the creativity of the dancers, and includes everything from elaborate costumes that can be transformed up to 3 times during a performance, taiko drummers, flags, props, banners, and the like. It's an amazing display of color, energy, tradition, and stamina (the performers can perform their dance constantly for up to two hours during the parade!!):

The best part about Yosakoi is the merging of traditional music, dance moves, and costumes, with modern beats and hip-hop steps! Also, as there were more than 300 dance teams, so there was really no limit to the variety of dances performed over the four-day festival!

At night, each team gets to perform another version of their Yosakoi dance on the main stage in Odori Park. During the event, the performers are judged, and on the last night, the finalists all have their turn wowing the audience with their sweet moves! It's really incredible to watch, and to think about all of the time that goes into a Yosakoi performance!

Watching the dancers, its incredibly hard not to get pumped up enough to join a team for next year...the drawback being the sacrifice of three months of your life to the endeavor! These people, for the most part, are SERIOUS (as my blonde friend, Callie, found out when the team she tried to join said she could on the condition that she dyed her hair black! )! I have to say that all of that hard work makes for an AMAZING festival and I absolutely cannot wait for next year's Yosakoi to roll back around!