Snow Festival

Bear with me, there are going to be a lot of images in this post. During our time at the Hokkaido snow festival we took more than 300 pictures. All of those pictures look equally interesting to me. It's difficult to winnow the list down, but I'm trying. Also, uploading pictures is a long process. Each photo takes roughly an ice age to go through. I may end up making several posts.

The Hokkaido snow festival is pretty famous. Basically, if you've seen pictures online of huge ice or snow sculptures, they probably came from the Chinese snow/ice festival or the Hokkaido snow festival. We wanted

The snow festival was set up along twelve blocks on one of the main streets in Sapporo. (There were also side streets with additional, smaller sculptures.) About 4 of the 12 blocks had gargantuan snow sculptures that stood 2 or 3 stories high.


Here are some of our pictures in no particular order: ( click for a larger image)










































Coming soon: the night pictures. We found that the sculptures had much more definition by night. Check it out.

Broken Roof 壊れた屋根

At 3 in the morning on February 5 the foot thick ice and snow that was hanging off our roof collapsed. Have you ever heard hundreds of pounds of snow fall? Let me tell you its loud. I woke bolt upright looking around for the bomb that had gone off in my bedroom.  I told Samantha not to worry about the snow falling. Then I realized she had slept through the whole thing. I tried to open the front door, but we were snowed in. So I did what anyone would do, went back to sleep. The next morning we managed to squeeze through the door and look outside.

The snow had broken our roof. Badly. There were huge chucks of ice every where. If it had hit us we would be dead. I called the School Board and the boss came out to look at our houses. The boss told me to be careful because the snow is dangerous if it falls. I got that. I figure if something can break wood and metal it’s dangerous. They are going to have someone come fix the roof this week. I’m just kind of amazed at the house sometimes.

Here is a list of the things that have been fixed, replaced, or broken in the house in a year and a half:

1. The old TV caught fire.
2. The stove broke and had to be replaced.
3. The paper in the windows got mold and had to be replaced.
4. The living room tatami had a hole and was replaced.
5. Xbox.
6. Roof
7. DVD player.
8. Couch.
9. Frozen pipes.

If you are my replacement in Ichinohe don’t be scared. When you come you will have, new paper screens, new stove, new tatami, and a partially new roof. Also the TV was replaced; with the oldest TV I have ever seen. So you will get the nicest of the houses.

Installing the tatami is a strange home repair. Partly because none of the Japanese people I asked have done it. This prompts comments about who the Japanese person is. Partly, because of the installation method. You pretty much just spread the tatami out, tack it in and push it flat. This took about an hour for a small room. It was really hard to get it flat. I would pull my side flat and then Samantha’s would wrinkle. Her side would be perfect and mine would be wrinkly. Smooth one wrinkle and a new one pops up.

It was a bit of an exercise in frustration. We finally got it though and it looks pretty good. The new tatami looks pretty good if I do say so my self. The smell it has is great, it smells kind of like fresh hay. So now I know more Japanese house repairs than the average Japanese person.

２月５日の午前3時に屋根から沢山の雪が落ちました。ものすごい量の雪が落ちる音を聞いたことありますか。とても、大きい音でしたよ。たび起きました。何かが爆発したかと思いました。私はサマンサに「心配しないでください」と言いました。でも、サマンサは目をさましていませんでした。落ちた雪でドアが開けられませんでした。だから私は誰でもそうするように、また寝ました。夜があけて、私達はなんとか家から脱け出し、外を見ました。

雪が落ちて屋根が壊れていました。大変でした。庭は雪と大きな氷のかたまりでいっぱいでした。この雪が私達に落ちていたら、絶対に死んでいました。教育委員会の人は屋根を見に来ました。「雪が落ちるとは危ないから気をつけてね」と言いました。分かります。雪で木や金属が壊れたらとても危ないと思います。今週中に、屋根を直してくれれでしょう。1年6か月の中で沢山の家の物が壊れました。これは直した物、かえた物、壊れた物のリストです。

１．テレビは火をふきました。

２．ガスレンジは壊れて、かえました。

３．古い障子にかびがありました。はりかえました。

４．居間の畳に穴がありました。はりかえました。

５．屋根。

６．Ｘボックス。

７．ＤＶＤプレーヤー。

８．ソファ。

９．パイプがこおりました。

次のＡＬＴさん心配しないでください。あなたが一戸町に来るときは、家に新しい障子と新しい畳と新しいガスレンジと一部に新しい屋根がついています。テレビもかえました。とても古いですけど。ＡＬＴの家の中で私の家が一番です。

畳を取り付けることはちょっとやっかいです。私がたずねた日本人は皆、畳をはりかえたことがありませんでした。「あなたのほうが日本人らしい」と言われました。畳は平らに押し広げて、びょうでとめました。でも、畳は平らに押し広げにくいです。私の方でしわをのばしたらサマンサの方がしわになります。サマンサの方を平らにしたら私の方がしわになります。一つしわを平らにすると、べつの所にまたしわができました。いらだたしかったですよ。1時間後に平らな畳ができました。新しい畳はきれいで香りがいいです。香りは干草っぽいです。私のほうがてんけいてきな日本人より、日本風の家を直すことを知っています。

Setsubun

Samantha and a demon.サマンサと鬼。

This Wednesday Samantha and I got to take part in Setsubun. Setsubun is a Japanese holiday that takes place the day before the first day of spring. The point of the holiday is to drive out bad things from your life. The way to do this is to throw peanuts at demons. The demons represent all the bad things in the coming year. In Okunakayama the way Setsubun is celebrated is some of the men of the town dress as demons. The demons go to different houses and the children throw peanuts at them. This year I got to play one of the demons. There were four demons, a black, a red (pink), a green, and a blue. I’ll let you guess from the pictures which one I am. (Hint I’m the tall one.) As demons we went to the Special needs school in Okunakayama and the houses of Elementary school kids. Some of the special school students had practiced English greetings or English Setsubun phrases, like, “Demon out good luck in.” The Principal of the school wanted me to yell in English. Since, raaaaaaarrrrrrrrrr is the same in any language I would yell, “I’m a demon.” After that I would nearly laugh, so maybe I wasn’t the scariest demon. Many students had also made paper weapons to fight the demons. After the special school we went to some of the families from the Church and the local Elementary school. The youngest kids were very very scared of us. I was surprised how sacred some kids were. I thought one child was going to hyperventilate. After he threw all the beans he just stood there shivering and breathing hard. Another child gave the most serious yeses when the black demon asked if they would be a good child in the year. She bowed and said yes like she was in the army. Many kids cried when they ran out of beans. The crying made getting pictures with the demons and the kids a bit of a problem. The best though was when we went to the house Samantha and Rachael were waiting at. We went up to these big windows before we started yelling. They jumped about a foot in the air. The black demon gave all the kids a snack after words. Many of the kids both wanted the snack but didn’t want to get close to the demon. So they grabbed it and ran away. The mask I wore was interesting. It had very small eye holes so I could only see directly in front of me. Because of this I was stumbling around like a drunk. Setsubun has got to have been one of the best things I have done in Japan. It will definitely be one of my favorite memories of my life in Japan.

Demon attack. 鬼アタック。

For some more Japanese study I have decided to do the blog in English and Japanese. Before I go back to America I want to pass the 2nd rank of the Japanese Language Test. I’m trying to use my Japanese more by reading and writing. So, I will do my best to write in Japanese.

この水曜日、サマンサと私は節分に参加することになっていました。節分は日本の祭りで、立春の前日です。祭りの意味は悪い物をおいはることです。その方法は鬼にピーナッツを投げるのでうす。鬼は来る年の悪い事を意味します。奥中山での節分のいわい方は町の男たちが鬼に扮します。鬼たちは色々な家に行って、子供たちは鬼にピーナッツを投げます。今年、私は鬼になりました。今年は、4人鬼がいました。黒鬼、赤鬼（ピンク）、緑鬼、青鬼でした。私はどの鬼ですか？（ヒント：私は背が高い鬼です。）鬼になって、奥中山の特別支援学校と
近くの小学校生の家に行きました。何人かの特別支援学校の生徒は英語でのあいさつと英語の節分の表現「鬼は外、服は内」を練習しました。校長先生は私に英語でわめいてほしがりました。でも、「らああああああ」は何語でもないから、英語で「私は鬼です」とわめきました。わめいた後で笑っていたから多分私は一番怖い鬼ではありませんでした。鬼とたたかうのために沢山の子供は紙のぶきを作りました。特別学校の後で教会と小学校生の家に行きました。一番小さい子供たちはとても、とても恐れました。何人かの子はあまりにこわがっていて、こちらがびっくりしました。一人の子はかこきゅうになるかと思いました。全文豆を投げた後、ぶるぶるふるえ、くちをぱくぱくして居間に立っていたのです。別の子は黒鬼が「この一年良い子でいられるか？」とたずねると、大真面目に「はい、はい」と言いました。あのおじぎと「はい」は軍隊ぽかったです。一番面白かったのはサマンサとレチェルの待っている家に行った時です。大きなまどにちかづいていき大声をあげました。彼女たちは空中に高く跳びました。黒鬼は子供皆におみやげをあげました。子供達はおみやげほしいけど、鬼に近づきたくはありません。だからおみやげひったくると、鬼から走ってにげました。鬼の仮面は面白かったです。仮面の目が小さすぎて、そばの物もぜんぜん見えません。だから酔っ払いみたいにつまずきました。奥中山の節分は私の日本生活の中でいい経験になりました。

もっと日本語の勉強のために英語と日本語でブログを書く事します。アメリカに帰る前に日本語能力試験の二級合格したいです。毎週、私は日本語読むし書くし練習してみます。日本語で書く事がんばります！

Racheal with demon killing beans. レィチェルと鬼殺すピーナッツです。