I know the title of this post may get some giggles, but it's referring to the weather. It's been ridiculously rainy for the past couple of days, and it REALLY makes me dread the rainy season. :( Another typhoon blew through, so we've picked up A LOT of rain from it. All of the rivers are raging death traps, but the Japanese know how to take care of massive amounts of water. They're used to the rainy season, when it basically rains for a month straight, so they have spillways. For example, yesterday when I went to work the irrigation ditch near our house was the highest I've ever seen it. However, when I got off yesterday, it was the lowest I've ever seen it b/c I'm sure they opened a spillway somewhere.
Anyway, onto more fun topics. On Sunday, we went to the drunken horse festival in Kumamoto. How does this NOT sound fun? ;) The original festival was to celebrate some victory over Korea. They would get the horses completely drunk and parade them though the town. After the parade, they would cut the heads off and eat the meat, lol. Now, it's the people that get completely drunk, and the horses are just for decoration. After we went to Mass, we took the back roads to the city. The expressway here is a toll road, so we thought we'd be crafty and avoid it. I think it added about 45 minutes to our travel time, but it was a BEAUTIFUL trip! The road was twisty, curvy, and hilly through the mountains, but it provided amazing views. We loved it. One bad thing about here is that we never really have any idea of where we're going, and we don't have GPS. We have google maps, which work pretty well, but whenever we're in a large city like Kumamoto and we're two lanes away from the right hand lane we're supposed to be in to make our turn, it gets stressful. I'm not a big fan of city driving, but couple that with a foreign city and not knowing where I'm going, and we have a recipe for a disaster. Ian couldn't drive b/c he accidentally left his wallet at home, including the license. :( We finally found parking and walked around the park area.
Neither of us has explored Kumamoto, so even on foot we we're not exactly sure where to go. In the park, we saw some horses and people dressed up, so we knew we were in the right area! There wasn't much going on, so we walked down the street to a shopping center where we actually found post cards! It's a miracle! Watch your mailboxes b/c you may have one on the way! :) After that, Ian wanted to go to a restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms. It's actually a really good Thai place, and someone explained the name. A certain percentage of sales goes to prevention and sexual education in Thailand. After lunch, we wandered around to the parade area and just happened to run into other ALTs. The beginning of the parade was pretty boring, but then it became very interesting very quickly. I'll post videos tonight or tomorrow, but basically they paraded groups down the street. Each group consisted of a big horse followed by 50(ish) marchers. The marchers would stop and dance in front of us and of course high five the cool foreigners. :) Of course most of them were drunk, which really added to the fun. Following the marchers was a big booze cart. I'm not lying. There was water and tea in it, but I'd say that the majority of the liquid in that was definitely alcohol. The Japanese do enjoy their alcohol. Even though it rained, we still stayed. It was waaaaaay too much fun to leave!
Later we went to a shopping area with some friends and ate dinner. We were going to eat at this ninja restaurant, but I really didn't want to get home so late. (Kumamoto is 3 hours from Yunomae.) We will do it sometime, though b/c it's supposed to be really cool. It's very well hidden, and you can't find it unless you know where you're going. Whenever the servers come to the table, they just appear like a ninja. We've only heard good things from this place. :) We took the back roads back, which was a little nerve wracking considering that I don't have experience driving that road, it was dark, and I was driving on this tiny, curvy, hilly, backwoods road.
On Monday, we went back to Hitoyoshi to meet some friends and do some shopping. Ian found the "Best Buy" store (remember, we don't actually know the names of stores, so we call them what they are in the States), and we bought a laptop case for my new laptop, which is much smaller than my old one. We also went to a Daiso (equivalent of dollar store), the "Spencer's" store, home goods store (Ian bought me a leg pillow....sweet!), and a thrift store. Ian thinks he found his Halloween costume at the thrift store. He tried on these horrible looking shoes that actually fit him, and then our friends convinced him that he should go as a pimp for Halloween. He also found a ridiculously awful shirt and pants, but I doubt the pants would fit. Asian men are tiny. When we got home, he was so excited b/c he found a "pimp cane." We're not exactly sure what it is, but it's been by our coat rack and looks like a cane. He told me I could match his costume and go as a ho. Yes, that's exactly what I was wanting to go as. :S I'm actually thinking about going as a witch, but nothing is finalized.
I think I'm going to stop here and make this two blogs so that it's not ridiculously long. Don't forget to read part II!
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