Well, a while ago I rashly promised that I would try to post something everyday. Life took a few sharp twists and turns around then, as life so often does.

Let's see.

Since the last time I posted, we had our Town Sports Day. Most towns have them, I think. There's even a prefectural level one, although the Kagoshima sports day is this week and lasts for three days. I don't have to go to that one.

I also got to go on an excursion with the ichi-nen-sei from Higashiichiki Junior High. We went down south, to a place called Agri-land, in Ei-cho. Nice view -- here, look:


That vague shadow in the left background is Kaimon dake, often called "The Fujisan of Satsuma" (Satsuma being the old name for Kagoshima Prefecture). Someday, I'll climb to the top of Mount Kaimon.

Yah, right.

It was tiring enough to climb up to this observation deck, on a much shorter hill. Before I started up, I noticed that there was a road spiraling up to the top, where the "road train" took people up. Screw that, I thought, there's a perfectly good stairway going up. Besides, the train only ran once an hour, and didn't stay up at the top for very long.

So, I made the climb on foot. At the top of the hill is a three-story observation point, made of concrete (of course.) The door appeared to be locked, so I asked one of the groundskeeper ladies (they came up by van) if I could go up. They were somewhat surprised, but they opened the door for me.

After I got up to the top, the three ladies followed me up. They commented on the fact that in all the years they had worked there, they had never bothered to climb to the top of the observation deck.

Anyway, like I said, the place where we were was called Agri-Land, short for agriculture land, I guess. There is a farm or two in the picture, that's true, but it's not part of this park. The golf course a bit further out, though. . . .

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Yesterday, I went to the neighboring town of Ijuin, where they were having a festival called "Myoenji Mairi." This can be loosely translated as "Journeying to the Myoen temple to pray." The festival is based on an old tradition, where the local daimyo, the head of the Shimazu clan, traveled to Myoenji once a year. In honor of this, visitors to this festival are supposed to walk from wherever they are to Ijuin. (I wimped out and went by train.) The neighboring towns each put together an official delegation, dressed in samurai armor, to make the trip. Elementary schoolers also often go, in cardboard and yarn versions of the same armor.

(sorry about the picture quality; I took these shots with my cell phone)

Nowadays, this ceremonial shrine visit festival also has a stage where various acts perform, both traditional Japanese music styles (like taiko), and more modern ones (there was a very good brass band there last year, which I specifically remember because they played the Backdraft/Iron Chef theme music). And, the grounds in front of the temple are used for a sports tournament. Teams of people from various towns, and student teams from various high schools, compete in such Japanese sports as Kendo, Sumo, and Kyudo.

While I was there, I ran into a couple of JET Programme friends. One of them, Scott, began telling me how he had earlier that day hit upon the idea that I could be the next great American sumo wrestler, following in the footsteps of Akebono and Konishiki (both of whom are from Hawaii). He went on to describe how he and Ellen (the other ALT I ran into) both knew people that could get me started in the local sumo organization, and then he could be my manager, and we'd move into the national --

Alas, I had to burst his bubble. I told him that, even before I had come to Japan, someone else had the exact same idea, and thus had dibs on the manager position. (I hope you're laughing, Mr. Hodge. . . I sure thought it was funny!)

So I wandered the festival for a few hours, taking in the sights, eating a lot of greasy food, making the discovery that the Satellite corporation also makes Japanese-style Porta-Johns, and so forth. When the time came to return home, I once again didn't even attempt the walk, but went home by taxi. (Most of the people who walk to the festival return home by bus, I think.)