flower power
Yesterday was the chrysanthemum festival at Mount Yahiko. However, last Thursday was my good friend Jamie's birthday so we obviously had to celebrate Wednesday night, especially since we had Thursday off. Afterall it had been way to long since I had seen the crazies, also known as Jamie, Michelle, and Megan. Michelle and Megan decided to surprise Jamie and bring her to Sanjo to meet some of us for dinner. We went to a great little izakaiya (a bar that serves food) called, Japanese Good Tasty. I had never been there before but it was recommended by a friend. A few drinks later and some good tasty food we were well on our way to partying. Later a few more people joined in and headed to karaoke for some great fun as usual. We headed back for some well deserved sleep on our day off. The next morning I awoke to omelettes, fresh fruit, toast, and orange juice. Obviously it was for Jamie, who was on her keitai (cell phone) practically the whole time, but everyone got a great breakfast out of the deal.
Then Saturday rolled around and about mid-afternoon Melissa and I rolled up to Mount Yahiko to see the famous chrysanthemum festival. Before we could even get to a see the flowers we had to walk through the yakuza (Japanese Mafia) food and game stands portion of this event. Back home all the usual carnival area attractions are obviously run by the carnies but here they are run by the yakuza. Of course we contributed to the yakuza fund enjoying chocolate covered bananas, hot dogs without the buns on a stick, and corn on the cob. All these things are made especially convenient but of course there is absolutely no where to put your garbage! I still am shocked at how clean this country stays without the use of garbage cans.
As you can see from the pictures there was quite the variety of chrysanthemums at the festival, even an entire miniature landscape made out of them. Many of the flowers received prizes, for being the most beautiful I would imagine. The whole shrine was practically surrounded by these things, as if they were taking over. It looked completely different than last time I was here with Gavin.
Recently I found out that the chrysanthemum is traditionally a funeral flower in Japan so it is not really nice to be handing these things out to friends or family, well unless you want to imply that they should die. Not really the kind of festival I thought it was but at least we found out all this information afterwards so it wasn't depressing to walk through at the time. Considering most festivals in this area are so happy and are just celebrating the seasons or a city. Too bad I will be thinking of death next time chrysanthemums cross my path.
To finish off a beautiful day we decided to grab some drinks before heading to another izakaiya called Samurai. This one had a trendy ambiance and we had actually tried a few times before to get in but hadn't made reservations, at least it wasn't because of the way I was dressed. Before heading out Melissa and I made some white Russians (kahlua, milk, and vodka) to get things started since our company could be a little tense at times. Then, in true broha/soha form, we drank chuhai's (the Japanese version of the wine cooler) on the train into Niigata city. To sum up the event, it was great food but there was some bad company. In fact, it was so bad that we ended up leaving the group early because one of the guys, who shall remain nameless, was being a douche bag. Which was fine because we headed back to Maki, had a few more drinks and some drunken fun. By fun I mean we talked about life and how interesting people can make it. The next day we went to Melissa's shogakko (elementary school) bunkasai. Going hung over to these things unshowered and in pajamas is not really appropriate attire but we survived. Overall another fun weekend in Japan and I didn't even leave the greater Sanjo area.
posted by Aaron @ 9:50 PM
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