after a whirlwind 3 day tokyo orientation (that i mostly stumbled through in a jet-lague induced fog) the adventure began in ikeda-machi, in beautiful nagano-ken.
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| the first week... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| july 18-25, 1999 after a whirlwind 3 day tokyo orientation (that i mostly stumbled through in a jet-lague induced fog) the adventure began in ikeda-machi, in beautiful nagano-ken. |
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| maruyama-san (my ultra genki and really cool) supervisor took me to the town craft park on my first day so i could have this great view of my new home. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| that saturday, david (my closest JET neighbor) and i headed to matsumoto for a festival. we met up with kay (who lived in matsumoto) and checked out the fabulous matsumoto-jo (castle). it's one of the few remaining original castle structures, complete with a hidden floor and lots of steep ladders. very cool. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| that night was a raging mizukoshi (i think that's what it's called) festival. the idea is to take the god of the temple out for a walk and it goes on for hours. along the way, all the shrine carriers are rewarded with food and obscene amounts of sake, which makes things more interesting the later it gets. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| in case you're wondering, it is VERY heavy, and it hurts like hell to carry. i carried it once, then spent the rest of the night avoiding that duty by carrying people's cups of beer and sake. =) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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