Fire & Sea Festival

Hundreds of years ago our Island was occupied by Japanese pirates. There is even a Pirate castle still standing that we hope to visit soon. Apparently our Island is also known for its beautiful women because most of the people living in Innoshima our still descendents from that time period. The pirates would kidnap beautiful women from all over the country to make them there wives. Every year in Innoshima they have a three part Pirate Festival the first part was before we arrived but the second and third parts were Saturday night and Sunday Afternoon. Saturday night was the Fire Festival. There were free buses leaving from all over the Island. Matt, our manager worked Cam’s last two classes so we could go. We hopped a very crowded bus right outside our apartment and headed to the beach. There were tons of people dressed in traditional clothes (kimonos and such).

We arrived just in time to see the “bringing of the fire.” Men dressed in Pirate garb stormed the beach carrying torches, and it was all done to the beat of traditional drums.

Next was the lighting of the torch pretty self explanatory.

We got a really good spot sitting on the beach because the next part of the festival was the fireworks. Cam and I both agree that they were the best fireworks we’ve ever seen. They were about 45 min long and someone told us afterwards there were about 3000 fireworks. There was even heart shaped and flower shaped ones, (very cool).

WARNING WARNING:
The next video is a little long. It's a full 6 minutes of just fireworks. We decided to put it in, even though everyone has seen fireworks before because there were some really different ones we hadn't seen before. So, feel free to skip it if your only into LIVE fireworks. I guess we won't feel TOO hurt *sniff sniff tear tear*

Narumi, our boss came to pick us up so we didn’t have to brave the bus again which was really nice. We ended the night watching some really cool traditional dancing with a modern twist, right on the beach.

They were really good and it was really exciting to watch.

Sunday morning we borrowed a couple of scooters and drove back to the beach.

Yes I was very brave and drove the 45 minutes on the wrong side of the road. This turned out to be not as hard as it sounds since there are only three turns to get there. Also we kinda hugged the side so I could go slowly and people could pass us. Which lots of scooters do so no one was even mad at me. Except Cam!!! Hee Hee. We got to the beach where the Sea Festival was taking place AKA Dragon boat races.

It was awesome. We even had a team to cheer for because one of those business men I told you about earlier is on the company team. So we cheered but they didn’t win. Which was okay because I guess the same team wins every year. The winning team is the islands Dragon boat team they compete all over Japan. Where as the other teams are just competing for fun, they are local businesses, the high school, different companies, that sort of thing. In fact it is an honor to be able to race with the Innoshima Dragon Boat team. It’s like if there was an open entry hockey tournament for Canada Day and you got to play with against the Oilers. It was a great day the weather was perfect, there was a nice breeze off the water so we weren’t completely sweltering and the scooter ride home was great too. We can’t wait till there’s another festival.

AAAHHH Nothing to Report

HAPPY 29th BIRTHDAY MAMA!!!


Well this week we really are getting the hang of work we both worked everyday so not many fun things happening. No big adventures. I accidentally explained the word Penis to a group of business men thanks to our pal Dickie. The conversation started with nicknames which they don't really have in Japan so I was talking about some of our nicknames. Angela = Ang, Thomas = Tom, Daniel = Dan, Kimberley = Kim, and Richard = Dick or Dickie. Dick also swear they said. I explained yes dick is also a nickname for a mans penis. Peennniiiisss what pppeeeennniiisss. So I pointed and they did the big OOOOO HHHHHH I seee. Then one said to the other "you remember that movie aaahhh he say "suck my f ing dick" DICK ooohhh Penis OOOhhhh I understand" I was like oh crap. Any way yes so that's nicknames back to the lesson.

Maybe we will have a good post tomorrow. We're going to a festival tonight!!!

Miyajima

Thursday I was randomly attacked by a group of very tiny wild deer!!!! Meanwhile Cam decided while I was being attacked this would be a good time to snap a picture!

But wait maybe I should start at the beginning!

Thursday we decided to head to this island called Miyajima just off thee coast of Hiroshima for the day. We walked back towards our favorite tram stop but along the way we discovered an arcade of sorts. When we went in we realized it was full of those games where the claw comes down and you try to win the stuffed animal.

Except you could win way more things like frying pans, clocks, pillows, karaoke sets, and much much more. . .

in the back they had some arcade games some of which were neat like Mario Kart.

So we decided to use one of the photo booths at the front, they were really neat and huge. You stand in them and the platform you are standing on raises and lowers while a wind machine, blows your hair back and it takes 8 pictures. But you only got to pick 4 which we found out when they picked 4 for us because we ran out of time. (that whole not being able to read Japanese thing can really be a problem.) Cynthia start thinking of poses, if (I mean when) you come were so going back there!!! We couldn't figure out the platform thing since we had to be kneeling but when we got out we realized when we were kneeling the Japanese were standing and when we were standing tiny Japanese girls were jumping in the pictures. Very funny!!

After leaving the arcade, we took the hour long tram ride to the ferry port. Then a 15 min long ferry ride to the island.

This island is famous for its tame deer that roam the island. So maybe it wasn’t exactly a random attack. I bought some deer food and they swarmed it was a little scary.

Especially when horny there started eating my shirt. After convincing Cam to switch he could do the feeding I’d do the pictures, I still had to wrestle my shirt out of that deer’s mouth. (There’s a hole by the way I’m not impressed).

As we started to walk a little farther into the island we realized that A) There are signs warning us of the dangers of fraternizing with the horned varieties.

And B) if you stay away from the crowds you can find a nice calm deer to feed with no shirt eating involved.

The Islands main attraction is its floating Torii and floating shrine.

The Itsukushima-jinja shrine dates back to the 1168. Its pier-like construction is a result of the islands holy status. Commoners were not allowed to set foot on the island and had to approach the shrine by boat, entering through the floating Torii out in the bay.

A lot of the time now the Torii and shrine have no water surrounding them at all, only mud, but we were lucky enough to see them during high tide. The Torii is classified as one of Japan’s three best views!

Before entering the temple we had to cleanse our mouths.

Next we went to the aquarium, just in time for the penguin party where I got to pet a penguin.

Then we saw a kind of dolphin we thought or maybe a beluga, they didn’t always have English. It looked like a cross between the two it had no fin, and didn’t have a dolphin nose but other than that looked just like a dolphin. Then we spotted the English. It’s called a finless porpoise, and it’s from right where we are living in the Seto Inland Sea. Apparently they do something that helps fisherman catch the fish so fishermen are very protective of them. Neat!!

Then we saw the regular stuff all sorts of fish, octopus, and crabs. We saw this huge fish (no English so we don’t know what it was called).

The seals were adorable not at all like the evil killer seals on "March of the Penguins”.

The turtles were giant and I’m pretty sure they were mocking us by staying in there that they could get out if they wanted to.

Sea otters were hard to get a picture of they were very active just all over the place. But Cam got this one when they took a break.

Finally we went to the sea lion show. We had no idea what was going on because we don’t speak Japanese, but the sea lions were very cute, and at one point they danced wearing fisherman hats. (That was my favorite part) it transcends language barriers. Leaving the Aquarium we started walking in the general direction of two things because we hadn’t decided which we were going to do yet. The Beach or The Ropeway up the Mountain. Along the way we took a bunch of pictures of different statues and small shrines that litter the beach.

Then as we were taking this picture of ourselves with the Torii in the background (there are only so many places you can set up the timer),

we found some crabs. After I poked them with a stick I found, one crab stole my stick and disappeared down a hole. (My stick was probably more than a foot long). It was funny one second I had the stick the next it was gone down the hole. Cam laughed so hard.

Then it started to pour rain so both options were out and we headed back to Hiroshima. Took the ferry, then the Tram, then we were hungry and I felt like sushi so we were looking for a place that looked like we might be able to order. We found a place with a big picture menu outside and pretty good prices so in we went. It was pretty fancy when we got in the first thing they did was take our shoes and put them in a locker then we ordered and the food was fantastic. We ate every bit and it wasn’t even that expensive. Plus we tried the Hiroshima-yaki which is the local version of okonomiyaki an egg-based savory pancake made with soba (thin buckwheat noodles) and fried egg. It was very yummy.

The name of our restaurant was za-watami.

Then on the walk home we saw a pet shop with the tiniest puppies ever in it.

So we went in and looked around then discovered it was three floors. First floor was the cheapest going all the way up to the puppies on the third floor that were all over 2500 dollars. On the way back down we see a picture of Paris Hilton and Tinkerbelle visiting the store and a note saying thanks for everything. It was crazy.

Now we are home and Cam is working today, but it sure was a great vacation.