Okinawa Festival

HAHAHA AWWW YEAAAAH I LOOK WAY TOO HAPPY.

Mina konichiwa, or konbanwa depending on where your time zone is. I know I know, you'll all be up on my grill about the lack of post in the last few days, but hey. You know the rules, the more I see comments, the more often I will update this blog. Haha, jodan desu yo jodan desu. Anyhow, there wasn't much to update on other than the eat/sleep/school combination, until this weekend where I went Karaoking on Friday night and went to the Izokaya bar on Saturday. This time at the Izokaya bar, I tried both Ostrich and KANGAROU (sorry Aussies) meat. Which were both sooo good, but not as great as the Alligator.

However, in this issue I will talk about the Okinawa festival, which is worth mentioning since it was TOTALLY AWESOME. Now, you may ask what is 'okinawa' and no, it's not a panties festival, that only happens next month. Okinawa is completely errr.... south-east of Japan. Okay I'll be honest with you, my sole knowledge about Okinawa is their word for "hello" which is "haisai"- and I know this from that one episode of Azumanga Daioh. So, I'll let mah friend do the talk for me;

Okinawa Prefecture (沖縄県, Okinawa-ken^?, Okinawan: Uchinaa) is one of Japan's southern prefectures, and consists of hundreds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over 1,000 km long, which extends southwest from Kyūshū (the southwesternmost of Japan's main four islands) to Taiwan. Okinawa's capital, Naha, is located in the southern part of the largest and most populous island, Okinawa Island, which is approximately half-way between Kyūshū and Taiwan. The disputed Senkaku Islands (Mandarin: Diaoyu Islands) are also administered as part of Okinawa Prefecture at present.


~wikipedia; cuz you're too fucking lazy to do it yourself


So no, I didn't go to okinawa - however I did go to Osaka for the festival, which was held in some kouen, I forgot the name of the place. Therefore, another exciting series of rides in trains and figuring out the maze map and which platform and express train to take and before long, boom we were there. As I changed platforms to get on the JR line, I stumbled upon a dance troupe performing in public. Since I'm that awesome, I managed to film a part of it for yours truly:



Anyhow, we went into a bus to get to the festival and boy is it weird how different the buses work in Japan, in contrast to Montreal. First, you don't enter from the front, but actually the back of the bus. Also, you only pay when you LEAVE the bus (this time from the front), since price varies depending on the location of the bus stop. Fortunately there is a money changer in case you're out of coins AND it actually gives you change, unlike the stupid STM bus.

So, without a further ado, I give you a series of picture from the Okinawa festival;

 

Ahhh Yuji, you will always be Genki

The festival wasn't exactly huge, but enjoyable all the same. The stands in the pictures were mostly food stands where I got to try a couple of things like seaweed tempura, grilled ika (squid), the traditional Okinawan Goya (some really nasty and bitter vegetable) and of course kaki gori (shaved ice). There were a couple of memorial stands about tragic things that happened in Okinawa (probably because of military occupation, but I don't know too much cuz I read Japanese like a tard'). The dancers were pretty cool, even though it was much more slow paced than the previous dance I showed to you guys in the FIRST YOUTUBE VIDEO I EVER UPLOADED, WOOOOOOOT. I actually have a video of that also, but the uploading on youtube is taking way too long cuz of the lame network we have in the dorms. Therefore, I'll post the video in a future post.

EDIT; DONE UPLOADING:



I joined in on the dancing as two old Japanese obaasans (grand mothers) taught me how to do the okinawan dance while my friends laughed at me cuz of the purple bandana I had to wear (i don't think it was necessary, just another way to make fun of the Gaijins cuz even the Nihon-jins were laughing). After a couple of hours we headed back to the dorms. I wanted to stay out longer in Osaka and explore the big city, but my camera died AND I have Japanese homework for tomorrow.

Speaking of which, I should get on that.

Alright, see you all next time. REMEMBER; LEAVE LOADS AND LOADS OF COMMENTS.

OR DIE.