Halloween in Japan

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The Japanese are famous for absorbing imported ideas and concepts yet still remaining fundamentally Japanese. Halloween is no exception. In recent years it has become quite a major event.

The original impetus was no doubt retail sales but the Japanese love a festival and a party and they have adopted Halloween as a sort of dress up Christmas.

In our local town we attended a great street party and I played keyboards in the band.

Spiderman's mum bought him an icecream but you can see from his look that he's pretty unimpressed as he has no apparent way of eating it.

It was surprisingly well attended and all the children were having an absolute ball. All very harmlesss and good natured.

The band played 5 songs. We were on after the Hawaiian Band, the High School dance troupe and the Primary School rappers. All hard acts to follow.

After the street party we retired to the band leader's pub for our own party which also happened to be Tomono's and the guitarist's wife's birthday.


So the band played on..and on.... and on with everyone having a go and vast amounts of food and drink consumed well into the night.

Great fun doesn't adequately describe it.

Satellite Love

I was born a week before Sputnik, the first satellite, was launched. The night I came home from hospital my parents sat on the verandah and watched it fly overhead.

 I've had a bit of a thing about satellites ever  since.






So it was off to Tsukuba in Ibaraki Prefecture to visit the National Space Centre. Tsukuba is a manufactured city and is the tech-hub city of Japan. It houses, apart from the Space Agency, many startups, technology firms and research facilities and universities.

It is basically in the middle of nowhere and was built from scratch, its a bit like Canberra but without the fun and excitement. Every building looks like a suburban dental clinic or hospital.

I'm being a little unfair, as like Canberra, there are good things around it. Mt Tsukuba rises out of the Ibaraki plain and at its foot are some truly splendid old samurai houses.


But the Space Centre is marvellous. its full of satellites and rocket engines and there is a real, massive rocket in the carpark, every car park should have one.

A surprising thing was the sheer size of the space station modules. One always thinks of poor astronauts crammed into impossibly small tin can arrangements but the space station is positively roomy.

Also the size of some of the new satellites is astonishing.

 

 

 

A rocket engine looking like a rather nice modern sculpture.

This is Hayabusa, a personal favourite. It circled an asteroid, landed on it, took a sample amd then returned to earth. It parachuted down at Woomera in South Australia.

The Fox's Wedding

In Minowa, Gunma Prefecture, 0n a sunny Sunday we attended the wedding of a fox. Foxes' weddings have a long tradition in Japanese folklore.

Foxes are meant to be able to change into human shape to trick people.

There is probably a sexual, fertility aspect to it as well as ancient Japan had many strange animist based superstitions.

Also in the past the strange bits of ball lightning and swamp gas etc seen at night have meant to be the lantern lights of such mysterious weddings.

So in Minowa everyone dresses up as foxes and heads to the park. 

The dancing grannies were a particular treat, note the use of traditional instruments

 A full on wedding is performed between a bride and groom dressed as foxes. The prefectureal governor was there as was the mayor of the big city nearby plus other dignitaries.

 Wedding speeches were made, just as boring as the real ones, and then a full marriage ceremony was performed. 

The celebrations then go on all afternoon and into the night but even foxes need their daily noodles.

Everyone was having a great time.

Horse Archery in Ibaraki

Yabusame is the traditional horse archery of Japan. It is still practiced in locations all over the country.

We went to Ibaraki to a horse archery school deep in the forest. It turns out the family have been doing it for generations and indeed represent Japan at international competitions.

In the rather lucky shot below you can actually see an arrow in mid flight.

It's is obviously not an easy thing to do. In the competitions you ride along a path and shoot series of arrows at targets as you hurtle past. The arrows are stuffed down your trousers for easy access, although apparently some people still use quivers.

The women of the family were simply astounding to watch on both their speed and accuracy.

 They couldn't have been nicer or more friendly and helpful.









 It was such an interesting day amongst a traditonal family, who seem to like Western cowboy gear and indeed were playing lonesome cowboy music to their horses in the stables.

What a marvellous country this is.