Friday, November 12, 2004

9/26/04: Festival, Yufuin, Beppu

Greetings again,

We experienced our first Japanese festival by participating in it! Last Saturday was the Isahaya Nonnoko festival and Sony sponsored a group in the parade. Men wore a a white shirt under colorful waistcoat-length kimono jackets, called happees, with Sony logos, white shorts and black or white slippers. The women had full-length red kimonos, thick yellow waist wraps, the traditional Isahaya straw bonnet, and sandels. We had a team of professionals dressing us in the kimono and doing the wrap work. Bridget and I got tutted at for wearing the wrong undergarments; not that it mattered because we got wrapped within an inch of our life.

We were well-prepared for the parade because we had gone to three practices perfecting the steps to the sara-odori (the dance of the dishes) which is marched/danced to an awful song call "Nonnoka bushi". The most important part of the dance was to hold ceramic saucers, two per hand, and clink them together like large finger cymbals. It was quite a scene. The managers walked along the parade route, handing out cups of sake to the crowd, replacing smashed dishes, and waving huge fans to keep the marchers cool. Back at the hotel we changed and then went to Sony's dinner - lots of speeches and a huge buffet feast, with every kind of Japanese food imaginable: tempura, okonomiyake, sashime, soups, custards, yakatori, emamae, spicy noodles, spring rolls, pot stickers, plus plenty of beer and souchu. Then more speeches where they made us get on stage and say a few words.

Good thing it was a holiday weekend, by Sunday we were ready to leave town. When the allies occupied Japan after the war, one of the things they did was get rid of all the regional, traditional holidays and substitute them with generic, national days. So Monday was "Respect for the Aged Day" and Thursday was "Autumn Equinox" day. Most of the folks Dave has been working with at Sony are fairly young, so I told him that's why he had Monday off, but not Thursday. We decided on an overnight to the Yuffin/Beppu area, which are in the Oita region of Kyushu - northeast to the Pacific ocean on the map: http://gojapan.about.com/cs/japanmaps/l/blkyushumap.htm

Yufuin is a small, very sweet, resort town in the biggish Kuju mountains. The town sits in the shadow of a huge dormant volcano, Yufu-dake. Our objective was to find an onsen (hot spring-fed bath) resort. People travel from all over Japan to Kyushu because of its famous hot springs. We were able to book a room with the help of the folks at the train station info desk. We had tried calling a place closer to us earlier and got rejected because we are gaijin (foreigners). Nothing personal, the language barrier was enough to make them feel uncomfortable with us. We've heard that foreigners often don't use the baths correctly and it causes a bit of trouble.

Our room was Japanese-style, which means a small entry where you take off and stow your shoes, a tiny bath with a washbasin and toilet, then one big room floored with tatami mats, a low table, cushions, and 2 low chairs. There was a large closet which stored the futons and other bedding. The maid set up the the sleep area while we were at dinner by moving the table and chairs and laying the futons side-by-side. The onsen was wonderful. We got 15-minutes in a private outdoor bath (with view of the volcano), and all the bathing time we wanted in the male and female communal baths. Each area had a changing room, a wash area for soaping up and rinsing before getting in the bath (the part foreigners mess up), large indoor and outdoor baths, all, again, with a view facing the ominous-looking volcano. The water was hot enough to cause a wince getting in, but not so hot you can't stay for 10 or 15-minutes. We dressed in the provided yakata robes, and strolled down to the onsen whenever the mood struck us. I think I went five times. It was incredibly relaxing.
They told us dinner was a BBQ, which turned out to be a Korean yakatori - a grill in the middle of the table where you cook your beef, chicken and vegetables. This was great fun for the kids and we all stuffed ourselves. Monday morning we drove over a mountain pass into Beppu, which is a much larger, garish, strip-laden spa town on the Pacific coast. Really the antithesis of Yufuin. We drove down to the sea, parked, and walked the disappointing waterfront a bit till we came to an area where women were burying people in heated sand. For about $7, Bridget & Eric each got a cotton robe and about 15 minutes buried in the piping hot sand, then a shower and soak in a hot spring tub. They thought it was a hoot, and we got some nice pictures with just their heads sticking out of the sand.

I posted a few photos at http://photos.yahoo.com/~iverlink Looks like my web site is a bust - my ISP and Japan ADSL folks aren't working together.

All our best,
barbara

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