My town goes boom-bang-a-bang

Boom-bang-a-bang this time of year,
boom-bang-a-bang, boom-bang-a-bang loud in my ear...
No, I haven't moved to Beirut. It's been festival week in Katsuyama and what a crazy time it's been.

I managed to avoid watching Bridget Jones again on Monday although I actually have no recollection of what I did do, so it must have been a lie. Or a blackout brought on by the shock of ACTUALLY HAVING SOMETHING TO DO AT WORK!!! Tuesday night the festival started- at 6 I was told, so I wondered round town at 6 and nothing was happening so I went home again and shuffled papers and plastic bags around the living room until it was bedtime. As you do.

On wednesday, after a comedy morning at possibly the smallest school in the prefecture (only 6 students) where I taught one lesson, told them all meat made me vomit and was taken to see a thousand year old cherry tree (very big, very nice) I went off to meet visitors who were coming to see the festival. Vicki was coming from Niimi and Tara from Kuse, so I met Vicki, showed her round the town and we bumped into Christine.Vicki quickly figured out that I taught all the children aged 5-15 in my town as pretty much everyone of them said hello at the festival.

Pretty soon things were going off. The festival started. This is the one that was cancelled because of the typhoon last year. It involves the town splitting up into it's districts (or streets as they are commonly known), building a wooden cart and then ramming them into each other. There appears to be a referee and there appears to be a winner at each duel, but it's not recorded and apparently is for personal pleasure. Well, having been told many stories of loss of digits and limbs and broken legs and hands and feet caused by said carts in previous years I strangely enough turned down an offer to push one (although watching it last night I thought it may have been fun- but not for 4.5 hours each night as is done). When it's all in full swing the atmosphere's great- on the back of each cart people are banging drums and ringing bells (and getting whiplash) and groups of girls dance behind the carts cheering their teams. It's a true spectacle, and one of only five festivals of it's kind in Japan. Fortunately one of the others is in Kuse next week, so we will see it again!

Anyway, on Wednesday night one of the ladies from our English conversation class gave us tasty sushi and invited us to watch the festival from the first floor of her house (2nd floor to Americans), so I now have 3,204,345 pictures of the festival.

On Thursday, more visitors came to see it. Jaco, the ALT from three towns away came with his parents and another Okayama ALT, Stu. They all loved it, and all my kids were shocked by how tall they both are (both are well over six feet tall). It's hard not to enjoy the atmosphere of this festival and get caught up in the cheering (that is, once you've found out who your team is- Christine was made aware half way through the night that the team she'd been told was hers actually wasn't. D'oh!). But the banging sound of the crashing carts does go right through you. Although the festival kept on till 10:30 we went to Wakaba at 9 o'clock for dinner. Great place. But having not had a drink for a while (well, maybe a week), I managed to get a little bit smashed off three beers. I am blaming tiredness and cold weather for this sorry state of affairs- Thursday was remarkable for being the coldest day of the year so far (in my opinion), so I had to wear Jeans and a long sleeve top all night. Tomorrow will be similar- 14 degrees! Gah! Now that my skin isn't constantly on fire I am more able to assess the weather. And it leaves me wishing my skin were at least toasty...

Have a good weekend!