Storms are on the Ocean, Hippies are everywhere

Sado Island was great. The Kodo drummers were amazing as one might expect. I also didn`t realize there are some very talented women performers among the members of Kodo which is really a large ensemble of people. The women played drums, sang beautifully, danced, and best of all played the koto all while wearing kimonos! Some of it was beautiful and graceful, some of it was amazing for the sheer endurance of the performers, not to mention physique of shirtless pantless men... (they were wearing those sumo wrestler old underwear, sort of like a t-shirt rolled up to be a chunky-style g-string. Everyone in the audience sat on the floor knee touching knee touching back, knocking over someones beer, getting uncomfortable muscle cramps and such until the end when everybody clapped in perfect unison and stood up until the performers came out and gave us some more music to clap and dance to. Well I didn`t see a whole lot of dancers, but that really didn`t stop me. Some of the drums were GINORMOUS! I could use one as a bed most likely. Actually I don`t think it would be possible to get one into my apato.

Maybe even better than getting to see the KODO drummers (maybe) was the beach party afterwards with lots of JETS and folks playing drums and dancing around a bonfire and kicking up sand and sitting in circles, and me building sand elephants and spreading love via Pocky and enticing folks to dance. The beach was trashed before we came due to the typhoon that had blown thru and brought lots of junk from China onto the beach, but it was dark anyway, and it didn`t spoil the mood a bit. There was beer, there was music(and a dijeridoo..sp?), there was dancing (At least one person was always dancing and sometimes it was me!), and there was a guy running out into the waves in his underwear. A good time indeed.

I think it was rather funny to find that hippies are in Japan. The fringe events of the festival had several long haired Japanese flower children, and all kinds of beads and hemp and natural dyed clothes and crystals and hippie jewelry and indian made clothes. Yeah it was really not soo much different from a music festival back home minus the fiddles and banjos. A realized this when I saw fellow JETS reacting to the festival who had never really been around hippie folks. Poor sheltered kids. Hee hee.

The worst part of the whole trip was the ferry ride over to the island. I had hopped a train by myself, then snagged a taxi to the ferry port then met some Americans... now living in Japan going on 12 years.. how to buy a ticket for the ferry. So that was no prob until the ferry set out across the tumultuous sea, right after the typhoon had blown through the previous nite. I have never ever been motion sick in my life. But after about 20 min of the boat heaving up and down and throwing people down the aisles like they were drunk, my stomach refused to take anymore. Chris, a kind kind kind person who lives in Tokyo with his wife and works for IBM, ended up helping me work my way over all the people laying on the floor (there are no chairs, just carpeted areas to sit on.. this is Japan), while the boat was making me stagger (it threw me to the floor the first time I stood up), then we made our way to the ladies room, barf bag firmly in hand, but there was a line and the lady behind the gift/info counter seemed to not be phased at all by the unhappy sick people when she suggested trying another bathroom or outside as I was sliding to the floor. So we weaved our way outside, and all was happy and blissful when the fresh air hit my face. So I spent the rest of the afternoon boat ride of 2 hours out on the deck getting sprayed by cool salt water, that made your lips taste salty and gathered into little salt flakes on your eye lashes and hair.

A cute Japanese girl came up and asked if she could take Chris`s and my picture, and we said okay. Then when Chris went to find our shoes(You take your shoes off before stepping on the carpet areas, and they had been left behind in the haste to not be sick in front of a roomful of people), I went up and talked to her. Yuiko is a really sweet person and we had a conversation in English, and she taught me some Japanese words like nami... which is wave. (As in Tsunami). She gave me the Mickey Mouse key chain off of her keitai(cell phone) before we parted. So if you read this... thanks Yuiko.

I stayed with Matt and the three awesome South Africans, Ryan, Nuria, and Natasha at Matts island abode. Matt has a bigger apato than me (*jealous*). He was a really kind and generous host and everybody had a great time. I wish I had a place where more than one person could crash on my floor, but I hope they`ll come and visit me and ski this winter (lots of great resorts within 10min +.)

The ride back on the ferry was incredibly fun compared to the last ride, although this ferry was very nice, it was kind of empty compared to the packed one coming over, and I had no one to talk to, but I did have a nice bowl of ramen. Then before getting off I met Kate from Illinios, another first year JET in Niigata-ken, and we decided to kill time waiting for the next train by walking to the train station. We stopped by a sweet shop on the way and I tried some Japanese desserts, and then we found the right train and made the trip back. Truly I should travel everywhere by train, I get much more lost by car! More tomorow....