Springtime Huzzah!

Ohisashiburi! Longtime no post! PS - click for larger photos.

H. at Musashino Koen

Being a Canadian kid, I love snow and I love winter, but after five or so months of icy weather, the first spring melt is always a welcome breath of fresh air. You know it's going to snow again, but still, it gives one hope.


Well, spring is not quite the same in Tokyo as it is back home (except for the knowledge that it will get cold again before it gets warm for good), but still, the first warm days bring a certain amount of giddiness with them. There's just something refreshing about not being able to see your breath when you wake up in the morning (and I mean inside the house - oh central heating, how I miss you!). 

Hark! A bird!

Just a week or two ago, we had quite a snowfall here (for Tokyo). It was perfectly Robert Frost-esque. H. and I took the opportunity to go to the park and build a big snowman with a traffic cone for a hat. We built a smaller one just outside our apartment (no hat). Unfortunately, the falling snow was so wet we thought we ought not take our cameras, but trust me, it was heavenly.


The snow lasted approximately three days (and really, that's stretching it - it was mostly gone by noon the next day), and but a short time later, the thermometer reached 20C. Yup. 20C. In February. Oh, kaloo kalay! 

Toad. Not singing. Just chillin'.

Do you know what the first day of warm weather means in Tokyo? I thought it just meant no more kotatsu (*sigh*), but it actually means toads. Lots of them. Big ones. All over the place (well, park). And lots of singing. Singing toads looking for mates. H. and I went walking in the park Friday evening and the pond was fairly teeming with them. When we went back today, the pond was a tangle of toad eggs. Now, I've seen toad eggs before, but this was unbelievable. It looked like a snarl of giant worms or intestines or something. Gross. But if it means lots of cute little tadpoles/pollywogs and toads, then that's cool.  

Gross eggs.

The warm weather also means that the ume blossoms (plum blossoms) start coming out in full force. They've been blooming in fits and starts since late December, but the past few days have really got them going. H. and I spent the afternoon wandering and snapping photos of them (and toads). We also spent the day suffering from another sign of spring: hay fever. How I despise you, cypress trees! It's almost enough to make a girl wish that spring would pack up and go the way of the dodo, but then again, no: waking up with a sneeze is still better than waking up to a 5C room.

Vegetable garden in February. Sweet!

Fishing pond. No old men today. Weird.

Rice paddy. Currently tadpole hatchery.

Don't know what this is.

Ume!

Sakura!? Hayai, ne! (Cherry blossom!? Early, eh!)

More ume.

And more ume.

Summertime in the City - Bon Odori: Higashi-Koganei Video

Summertime in the City - Bon Odori: Nankin Tama Sudare Video

Summertime in the City - Bon Odori

"Hotte hotte, mata hotte, katsuide katsuide, ato sagari, oshite oshite, hiraite, cho-chong-ga-chong"

Higashi-Koganei Bon Odori

If you're going to go to a Bon Odori in Tokyo, this is one of the dances you're going to need to know. It's easy, thanks to the words above. They're instructions read in the rhythm of the dance. It translates roughly as "dig, dig, dig again, (carry on your) shoulder, (carry on your) shoulder, afterwards back up, push, push, open (your arms), clap, clap. Of course, you're not actually digging, just going through the motions. H.'s grandfather taught it to him when he was just a little thing. H.'s niece, M., taught me the dance with the help of YouTube last year.

Higashi-Koganei Bon Odori

There are a bunch of other dances, too, but they're an awful lot harder (but still do-able - a Bon Odori isn't exactly a place where you have to be good at dancing). All you have to do is follow one of the community ladies in a special yukata (summer kimono) and copy, copy, copy. But even they don't know all of the dances and end up copying each other. It's like one giant line of copy-cats, all craning to see what the person-who-knows-what-he-or-she-is-doing is doing.

H. and J. in Higashi-Koganei

For the second year in a row, H. and I went to our own little community Bon Odori in Higashi-Koganei. We took along a visiting friend, J., all decked out in a new yukata purchased earlier in the day in Asakusa. H. and I were in yukata, too, making us the most Japanese-y group there. Between the entertainment, which included taiko drummers, an enka singer, and a cheer-leading club, and the plentiful and cheap food (yaki soba, frankfurters, snow cones, candy floss, yaki tori, etc.), it was a glorious night of fun. 


A few weeks before the Higashi-Koganei Bon Odori, H. and I happened upon another Bon Odori, this time out Tachikawa way, on our way home from a day spent relaxing and barbeque-ing at Aki-kawa (Aki River). It was smaller than our own, but it also had an extra bit of Japanese culture: Nankin Tama Sudare, a really neat routine, involving a bunch of little sticks connected with string, that traditional Japanese "clowns" perform (although not very often these days). H. had actually never seen it live. For me, it was completely new. And, somehow, I found myself up on stage amongst a group of children, being taught how to do some basic shapes with the sticks. I suppose not surprisingly, I am now the proud owner of my own set (though it is disappointingly small). Also not surprisingly, nankin tama sudare also has a rhyme, as addictive as "The Song that Never Ends". 

"Asatte, asatte, asatte wa, nankin tama sudare..."

Tachikawa-area Bon Odori

Summertime in the City - the Awa Odori: Video Three

At the end of this video, there is some pretty great drumming. And, for the third time, it's all care of H.

Summertime in the City - the Awa Odori: Video Two

Some more footage. Again, care of H.

Summertime in the City - the Awa Odori: Video One

Awa Odori, Musashi-Koganei, 2010. Care of H.