rase-rase-rase-ra or Nebuta Festival

Last week we spent a long day in Aomori, the capital of our prefecture also called Aoromi, celebrating the Nebuta festival.

"There are many theories about the origin of the Nebuta Festival. One is that it is said to have originated after the subjugation of rebels in this district by "General TAMURAMARO" in the early 800's. He had his army create large creatures, called "Nebuta", for frighten the enemy. Another theory is that the Nebuta Festival was a development of the "TANABATA" festival in China. One of the customs during this festival was "TORO" floating. A "toro" is a wooden frame box wrapped with Japanese paper. The Japanese light a candle inside the "TORO" and put it out to float onto the river or into the sea. The purpose behind this is to purify themselves and send the evil spirits out to sea. "TORO" floating is still one of the most impressive and beautiful sights during the summer nights of the Japanese festivals. On the final night, "toro" floating in accompanied by a large display of colorful fireworks. This is said to be the origin of the Nebuta Festival. Gradually these floats grew in size, as did the festivities, until they are the large size they are now. Today the Nebuta floats are made of a wood base, carefully covered with this same Japanese paper, beautifully clolred, and lighted from the inner part with hundreds of light bulbs. In early August the colorful floats are pulled through the streets accompanied by people dancing in native Nebuta costumes, playing tunes on flutes and drums. "

We barely made it to Aomori, about an hour and a half away, in time to catch the last 10 minutes of the parade. One might think that it was too short, but with three kids that's about all you need of a parade. It was a great 10 minutes though. Just a bit better than the Riverton Days Parade.
It was filled with so much excitement. These Japanese really know how to celebrate! The floats were so big and detailed, they almost looked alive. We saw then during the day, but the rest of the week the parades were at night with them all lite up. During the parade one person would call out "rase-rase-rase-ra!" Then everyone else will chant it back, over and over. This is joined by a twitter of flutes and steady pounding of the drums. Surprisingly, for something so constant and repetative, it didn't get annoying and you find yourself joining in despite having no clue what they are chanting. (I believe it is the equivilant of cheering someone along. One site says it is just a chant used "to shake away the sleepiness of summer.")
Later that night we saw the longest firework show we've ever been to. It lasted 2 hours and had lots of "finales." A few were so grand that the smoke in the sky began to obscure the continueing fireworks. Fireworks were great and all, but the cool part was they took some of the floats and took them out on the water on barges. The night was filled with these brightly lite giant floats accentuated by huge fireworks and flutes and chants of Nebuta.

We tried to leave early to beat traffic out of the city. There were sooo many people there! So we headed back to the car only to be behold this:Our car was totally blocked and we had to wait another hour+ to be able to leave! We had a good time despite being so tired from lots of walking. We enjoyed a steamed bun, yaki soba, rice balls, chicken nuggets, and of course ice cream from the ever present festival vendors.

Tanabata Festibal

No I didn't misspell Festival. That's how the signs around Misawa spelled it in Engrish.
What is a Tanabata? It is a celebration they have every July. Here is my quick synopsis (i.e. Wikipedia version):
Tanabata (七夕, tanabata, meaning "Evening of the seventh") is a Japanese star festival.

Tanabata was inspired by the famous Chinese folklore, The Princess and the Cowherd.

Orihime (織姫, Weaving Princess), daughter of the Tentei (天帝, Sky King, or the universe itself), wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the Amanogawa (天の川, Milky Way, lit. "heavenly river"). Her father loved the cloth that she wove and so she worked very hard every day to weave it. However, Orihime was sad that because of her hard work she could never meet and fall in love with anyone. Concerned about his daughter, Tentei arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi (彦星, Cow Herder Star) who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa. When the two met, they fell instantly in love with each other and married shortly thereafter. However, once married, Orihime no longer would weave cloth for Tentei and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to stray all over Heaven. In anger, Tentei separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa and forbade them to meet. Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again. Tentei was moved by his daughter’s tears and allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if Orihime worked hard and finished her weaving. The first time they tried to meet, however, they found that they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata, the magpies cannot come and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet.

So there you have it, (I'm not sure why it isn't celebrated on the 7th). Although we do have a lot of crows around here, I didn't see any magpies. It did rain a bit so I guess these lovers will have to wait again until next year. It didn't stop us from having a good time though, besides my lover came back from across the Pacific this week. She may have used up all the magpies on her bumpy flight. Sorry Hikobaski, better luck next year!

This festival, like most Japanese festivals, is composed of cool decorations and lots of booths hawking different and food kitsch. In fact 5 minutes into our walk,while watching Sam on the "bumpy cars," Em asked, "Where's Max?" We turn around and he is walking back towards us with the biggest snow cone known to man. "IT was only 300 Yen!" (That's about $3.50, not too bad but definitely not a bargain.)
We had a pretty good time and even went back at night to see the cool lanterns they hang up, through which the boys loved walking/running. They also had different performances: singers, baton twirlers, hip hop dancers, orchestra, etc. Stay tuned for reports from the upcoming Nebuta festival in Aomori. Its supposed to be much grander!

Hirosaki Sakura Matsuri (Cherry Blossom Festival)

These are my favorite of the 300 Pictures we took last Tuesday. I couldn't believe how beautiful it was! Every where I turned was another perfect shot for a picture. We had a great time, especially since we had our good friends with us.

The cherry blossoms begin blossoming in southern Japan in late March/April and ends up by us in late April early May. One of the most famous festivals is in Hirosaki, about 2 hours west from Misawa.

Here's a little wiki info for you:

The cherry blossom also known as Sakura (Japanese kanji : 桜 or 櫻; hiragana: さくら) in Japanese. In English, the word "sakura" is equivalent to the Japanese flowering cherry. In China the cherry blossom symbolizes feminine beauty, the feminine principle, or love in the language of herbs. In Japan cherry blossoms also symbolize clouds due to their nature of blooming en masse, besides being an enduring metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life, an aspect of Japanese cultural tradition that is often associated with Buddhistic influence. The transience of the blossoms, the extreme beauty and quick death, has often been associated with mortality; for this reason, cherry blossoms are richly symbolic, and have been utilized often in Japanese art, manga, anime, and film, as well as at musical performances for ambient effect.

Which picture is your fav?*Thank you Wikipedia!

Cooking With Mamasans

Tonight I took my first Japanese cooking class. It was really fun. It started with a Japanese lady who works for the AF giving us an introduction to the ingredients and recipe that we will be trying. Tonight was cooking Hiyashi chuuka or Japanese cold noodles. Then the cooking began. all of a sudden there we three more older Japanese ladies whirling around the mini "Kitchen Stadium" chopping, pointing, shredding, etc. It lacked a traditional instruction, but once I got into the flow I was able to pick up on what ingredients were going where. What made it more confusing was that instead of cooking the scheduled recipe they made three additional dishes. It was wild.

Here is the cold noodle dish. It was really good, despite having forgotten to put the vinegar sauce on top.This one was my favorite, the hot noodle dish. It's basically a raman dish, but the best I've tasted, including the handful I've tried around Japan already.
The Japanese people are sooo nice. Everything is done with a smile and a bow. They like it when I try to say a phrase in Japanese. I want to be able to speak and read Japanese so bad.

The major victory tonight was getting introduced to a few of the Japanese cooking staples and how to go buy them. One favorite was the Shiso leaf. It had a wonderful aroma. Strong aroma like cilantro, but citrusy. It was placed in a rice dish, a potato/bean salad, and garnished the cold noodle dish. Now I need to brave Univers, the Japanese supermarket for some ingredients!

One of the other guys there summed it up perfectly: "all I've learned is I need three little Japanese ladies to come into my kitchen and cook for me."

Sushi Anyone!

WELL its sorta official. While the orders haven't actually been cut, the colonel (AF not KFC) called and told us we are going to be stationed in MISAWA JAPAN.

I've gone from excited, to worried and am on the way back up to excited.

Em has gone from depressed and is on the way to accepting it.

I will be reporting to COT (Commissioned officer training) on 26 August. That will be for four weeks and then its off to JAPAN.

Misawa in the Aomori Prefecture, part of Northern Honshu, which is the main island of Japan (Same island as Tokyo).

A few Misawa facts:
~400 Miles North of Japan
-rural an scenic
-4 defined seasons with a serious winter
-43,000 people
-Tokyo is an hour away by air, about 3 and a half hours by train, and about 10-12 hours by car.


That's alls I got for yous guys (that was Rhode Islander). Come visit Us!!!!!