Step right up and get your culture here...
Nov. 6th, 2006 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spacealien_vampFriday was a national holiday (Culture Day). I went with the MINNA no Salon crew to Hikone for a festival.
We started out by taking a tour of Hikone Castle. I went there before while I was studying Japanese at JCMU, so that wasn't anything new. Afterward, however, we went out to eat at a Japanese restaurant in a part of town I had never visited. The restaurant made a special vegetarian meal for me that was superb.
When lunch was over, I wandered back to the castle area to watch the parade that was the main event of the day. There were lots of people lined up along the road, but I was lucky enough to find a spot behind some people sitting down, so I managed to get some decent pictures.
Most of the people in the parade were demonstrating the clothing from long ago. However, the last picture was instead to display the skill of doing various acrobatic feats at the top of a ladder. The men with hooks would gather around the bottom of the ladder, using the hooks on a lower rung to hold it pointed straight up, while one man would climb to the top and hang at various angles.
Ladder acrobatics
I took a short movie of the ladder guys with my digital camera, which would have been really nifty to share. However, I automatically tilted the camera on end to get the whole ladder in the view...totally not realizing that this would make the movie come out sideways. Erg.
EDIT: For those who don't mind turning their heads (or monitors!) sideways, here is the movie file of the ladder acrobatics. (43MB .mpg)
I was wrangled into running the December MINNA no Salon meeting/Christmas Party. The suggestion was to make gingerbread cookies. I can probably handle that.
Saturday I took advantage of the nice weather and tried to catch up on my laundry. (I have a dryer, but if I put too much in it--say, more than three pairs of pants--it tends to overheat before the clothes are totally dry.)
Sunday I started the day by clearing off my kitchen table and making a fresh batch of tortillas. (Mmm...so goooood...)
After that, the rest of my time was spent in a Warcraft raid on Blackwing Lair. It was supposed to last around four hours, but we kept going and beating more bosses and it eventually stretched to over eight hours. We defeated the first six bosses and only quit when Chromaggus (the second-to-last boss) wiped the floor with us.
We started out by taking a tour of Hikone Castle. I went there before while I was studying Japanese at JCMU, so that wasn't anything new. Afterward, however, we went out to eat at a Japanese restaurant in a part of town I had never visited. The restaurant made a special vegetarian meal for me that was superb.
When lunch was over, I wandered back to the castle area to watch the parade that was the main event of the day. There were lots of people lined up along the road, but I was lucky enough to find a spot behind some people sitting down, so I managed to get some decent pictures.
Most of the people in the parade were demonstrating the clothing from long ago. However, the last picture was instead to display the skill of doing various acrobatic feats at the top of a ladder. The men with hooks would gather around the bottom of the ladder, using the hooks on a lower rung to hold it pointed straight up, while one man would climb to the top and hang at various angles.
Ladder acrobatics
I took a short movie of the ladder guys with my digital camera, which would have been really nifty to share. However, I automatically tilted the camera on end to get the whole ladder in the view...totally not realizing that this would make the movie come out sideways. Erg.
EDIT: For those who don't mind turning their heads (or monitors!) sideways, here is the movie file of the ladder acrobatics. (43MB .mpg)
I was wrangled into running the December MINNA no Salon meeting/Christmas Party. The suggestion was to make gingerbread cookies. I can probably handle that.
Saturday I took advantage of the nice weather and tried to catch up on my laundry. (I have a dryer, but if I put too much in it--say, more than three pairs of pants--it tends to overheat before the clothes are totally dry.)
Sunday I started the day by clearing off my kitchen table and making a fresh batch of tortillas. (Mmm...so goooood...)
After that, the rest of my time was spent in a Warcraft raid on Blackwing Lair. It was supposed to last around four hours, but we kept going and beating more bosses and it eventually stretched to over eight hours. We defeated the first six bosses and only quit when Chromaggus (the second-to-last boss) wiped the floor with us.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-07 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-07 05:09 pm (UTC)I want to go to Japan.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-07 08:54 pm (UTC)I believe it is a special costume for female dancers called shirabyoushi (http://www.nerimadors.or.jp/~chihiro/Collections/Shirabyoushi/index.html). (I only know this because I read the manga Hiou Shirabyoushi.)
I want to go to Japan.
...You know, I really need to hurry up and make these icons public. I've procrastinated quite a long time already...
no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 02:08 am (UTC)It looks as though it were a beautiful day for a parade. The shots are great.
It would probably be fun to watch the video sideways...y'know, you just tilt the head.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-11 11:44 pm (UTC)Okay, if you don't mind doing that, then go ahead. I posted a link to the movie file.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-12 02:19 pm (UTC)What a beautiful day!