Miyazaki Festival!

A couple of weeks ago, Miyazaki had a big festival. We headed down to Main Street with our friends Heidi, Aileen, and Julie to watch the parade. We had a little time to kill before the big event, so we walked down a "walking only" street, which just happened to be the right choice! There were all sorts of booths set up for the festival. Lots of food cooking and entertainment going on. Musical groups walked around playing instruments. A man with a giant head scared the crap out of Bridger (okay, it may or may not have been a costume. But a giant head is scary no matter what.) And Casey and I did some goldfish...ing! Heidi was telling us that fishing for gold fish is traditional at festivals. You pay a dollar or so and get a bowl. You also get a little net that is made of paper. The goal is to catch as many fish as possible before your paper net breaks. I wasn't too sure that I wanted to stick my hand in with a bunch of swimming fish (yes, I do realize they are goldfish, but they are fish nevertheless.) Anyway, Casey was victorious and we gave it a try!

We then made it to the parade and snapped lots of photos. By far, the coolest thing we saw in the parade was the traditional Lion Dance. I'm curious about the name because it is a dance where individuals are dressed up in what appears to be dragon costumes. There are two people to a costume (one person being the head and the other the...well...behind.) They shake around and come up to people. Apparently it is tradition to have the lions "bite" your children's heads for good luck. Now as a gaijin, I find this particular tradition to be quite amusing (only because getting your head bitten would be considered a bad thing in most situations.) Anyway, Casey wanted to have Bridger do it, but I didn't think he'd be quite up for it. And I was right. They started walking in our direction, and Bridger scrambled up Casey and clung to him for dear life. So we'll just have to go with the luck we already have and hope it's enough.

Here are links to some videos from the day:
Gold Fishing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_2JFmseoKc&feature=youtu.be
Traditional Lion Dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvd7tAV50Pc&feature=youtu.be

(The lion dance video is blurry for the first 20 seconds or so. Not sure why. Sorry about that! And sorry for my obnoxious laughter and screaming. Yeah...)


And of course, the pics.

Not really sure...

Our little family

As you can see, Bridger was pushing himself away from the big-headed...thing.

Inside a shop.

Street performers

Julie, Heidi, and Aileen!

Aileen's squid treat...

And now for the parade!

All in all, it was such a fun festival. We're so grateful to have friends from here who will show us around. Thanks Heidi, Aileen, and Julie!

Halloween: Stone, Scissors, Paper Style

So here's my post on Halloween. Why yes, I do realize we are quickly approaching the middle of November. But our costumes were just too cool not to share. You'll likely be jealous of the sheer awesomeness of them.

Actually, we decided to be completely cheap and make our costumes out of cardboard from the boxes our bottled water comes in. We cool like dat. (Yes, I did just write that.) After all, we can't bring a whole lot home with us next year, so why spend the money on it, right? Casey came home from the Kindergarten one day, after playing Rock, Paper, Scissors with the students (which just happens to be Stone, Scissors, Paper in Japan, I believe) and said "I know what we should be for Halloween!" So Stone, Scissors, Paper it was.

We went to the Halloween party at our LDS branch, along with our friend Hailey. She dressed up as a silent film star and looked awesome!

Bridger decided he couldn't stand the torture of his rock costume, so it lasted about five minutes (the fact that it was a stuffed garbage bag makes his protest understandable, I suppose.) And my scissors costume lasted about seven minutes. Apparently scissors costumes aren't all that conducive to baby-holding. Who knew?

So pretty much, Casey was the only one to stay dressed up for the entirety of the party. He walked around asking people to sign him. Nice conversation starter, I'd say.

Oh, and one more thing before the pictures: Casey dressed up for the Kindergarten's party earlier that day, but without the scissors and stone, a paper costume is kinda sad, right? The mothers who came for the party seemed to agree, and several asked what he was. He started to just say "paper" rather than explain. Many of them replied with "Well, that's a lazy costume!" Lame is probably a better adjective than lazy, but either way, it made us laugh.

Our amazing costumes...

With Hailey and Ayano!

Minnie and Anpan Man (Aileen and Shane)

With Yuiko!

And...the costumes are off.

Ayano and Yuiko :)

Nothing Better Than A Sunset

Ya know, there are a lot of incredible things in this world. But I must say that there really is nothing better than a sunset. And Miyazaki sunsets are some of the best I've seen. My neighbors likely laugh at the little American girl snapping photos from her balcony every night.

Sorry that the buildings are difficult to see, especially with this black background. But the sky's the important part anyway, right?

Phones and Moshi Moshi

By: Casey

Before we came to Japan, we decided that we both needed cell phones.  When we arrived, our first priority was to get them, so we could have the ability to call each other in times of emergency.  Little did we know that it was a dumb idea.  First of all, I work literally right across the street from where we live.  If there was an emergency, Ang could stick her head out of the window and shout for someone to get me.  Secondly, we are always together, so we don't need two phones.

Even though we only need one, we have two sweet phones.  And, FYI, phones in Japan are way cooler than phones in America.  They all come with infrared sensors to use.  What they do and how we use it is still a mystery to us, but one day...one day.  Also, we had a friend help us find some phones and we got a great deal; unlimited texting and calling for 9 dollars a phone per month.  It is through a company called Wilcom.  It's a pretty sweet hook up, so we don't complain too much about the fact that we have two phones.  

Well, the whole point of the story was to lead to a cool story we heard about using phones.  Something we have learned here is that people don't say "hello" when answering the phone, or even the Japanese equivalent of "konnichiha." Instead, when people answer the phone they say "moshi moshi."  Recently, we learned a cool story about why they answer that way.  I am not sure if this story actually has any validity to it, but it is freakin' sweet.

Traditionally, there are different kinds of spirits that inhabit Japan.  Two of the most cunning and deceitful spirits are the fox spirit and raccoon spirit.  They are incredibly clever and have the ability to transform into humans.  They take advantage of humans and rob them or get them to do their bidding.  Humans are pretty much powerless to the craftiness of the fox and raccoon spirits.  However, humans figured out that these spirits couldn't say the word "moshi".  Eventually, before you started a conversation, you would say "moshi moshi" and wait for the reply of the other person to make sure they were not such a spirit.  

In essence, whenever I answer the phone and hear someone say "moshi moshi," I know they are not a crafty spirit trying to deceive me. 

We Love Our Missionaries!

Wanna hear one of the most awesome things about living in Japan? We get to have a lot more contact with the missionaries! (Missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is the church we belong to.) Back home, I really didn't have much contact with them because of the many members who live there. But out here, members are few, which means we get to see them each week at church and feed them.

The missionaries in this area are so incredibly great. The elders picked us up from the airport with a teacher who works with Casey. And the sisters often interpret our church meetings for us, as we don't know much Japanese at all (and I mean not much at all.)

Oh, and did I mention that one of the sisters just happens to be my beautiful cousin, Alyssa? I couldn't believe the way it worked out, but Alyssa just happened to get transferred to Miyazaki a few weeks before we arrived. It was such a sweet mercy to be able to see someone we knew out here.

She recently got transferred to Fukuoka, which is a bummer for us! But I know she'll do great things out there, just as she did here.

And before the pictures (yes, you knew the pictures were coming, didn't you?) If you are not familiar with our church, which contains the fully-restored Gospel on the Earth, or would simply like to learn more about it, please visit www.lds.org.

And now for the pics!

The sisters have beautiful voices!

Terrifying picture of me, but meh. Alyssa looks great though!

Takachiho Gorge

A couple of weeks ago, we took a little trip to Takachiho Gorge with some friends here in Miyazaki. They are an awesome couple here with the Jet program (which teaches English to students in public schools in Japan) from Colorado. Patrick has lived here for a year already, but this is Hailey's first year. She got here just a couple of months before we did. I cannot even begin to describe how happy I was to meet her and learn that someone else was in our same "boat."

And now for Takachiho Gorge.

We were planning to do some canoeing in the gorge. However, when we arrived, we found ourselves in the stinky situation of getting there just a bit too late. So you know what that means: We'll just have to make our way back that way sometime within the next year.

Anyway, we ended up having a great time anyway. We took tons of pictures (poor Hailey and Patrick! Casey and I are a little bit attached to the camera...) We just couldn't help it though. Japan is so green and lush. Utah is going to look like a big dirt hill when we return after being used to all this bright vegetation (not that it didn't before. Although I am a fan of that dirt hill.)

When we were done walking along the trail for visitors, we visited Takachiho Shrine. We've been to just a few shrines at this point, but they seem to all be pretty much the same (and that makes sense.) There is a place where a person can wash his or her hands in a certain ritual to enter the grounds. There is the shrine where believers come to make an offering. I need to do some research on exactly what is done and why, but from what I have observed, it's a simple ritual of throwing money into the shrine, stepping away, and clapping. It's fascinating to see different cultures worship in different ways, according to their own beliefs. We are seriously enjoying the opportunity to learn about the Japanese culture in this way.

On our way back to Miyazaki, we stopped by a lantern festival. Well, that's not completely true, as we discovered later. In fact, the lantern festival was in the next town over. Yeah...things just weren't quite on our side that day...but no matter. We really enjoyed it. Got some fun pics (once again, sorry Patrick and Hailey!) and even got to watch a bit of a traditional Japanese dance that was being performed. The dance is another thing I need to study up on. We watched for about 10 minutes, and it was simply of a woman walking slowly and steadily around the stage and pausing at certain points, all to the beat of a drum behind her.

All in all, it was a pretty awesome day. (It's nice to know that you can have a great time, even when things don't quite work out the way you had expected!)

Sorry in advance for the incredible amount of pictureage (yes, pictureage) that comes along with this particular post.