Kamikita Preschool
During the Christmas season, here in Misawa the local elementary schools have performances. I was asked by one of my co-workers, at the school I teach at part-time, if I had a friend who would be willing to play Santa Claus. Well, I found a co-worker who was willing and off we went. Two consecutive weekends, I went to two different schools. When we get there, we walk in and there are rows and rows of parents seated on the auditorium floor in front of the stage. It’s crowded and there are lines of tripods with a wide array of electronic recording devices mounted on them, all aimed at the stage. It’s amazing to see how many parents were here to see their children perform. It didn’t matter whether their child just stood there and didn’t do anything remotely close to what they were supposed to or if they were the star of the performance, they just wanted to see their child being apart of something. It was a beautiful sight. There were several displays of music, dance, and a variety of stories, almost all of which I was unfamiliar with. Most of the stories were Japanese folklore and since my Japanese is not that fluent, I wasn’t able to understand everything.
After everything, all the younger classes are brought to the stage for the coming of Santa. At the first school, Santa just walked in from the side of the audience. At the second school, they had all the children ready on the stage, but behind the curtain. In front of the curtain, they had a large box that was wrapped like a present. Of course, my friend was hiding inside the box. They opened the curtain and began by having the children call for “Santa-san!” Once the chants were over, they opened the box and Santa appeared. Of the few children that began pouring out tears, I couldn’t tell whether they were afraid of Santa himself or the 6’4″ human being towering above their little world.
The principals gave me the privilege of being able to take photos backstage or up right in front of the stage. I managed to get some good photos and of course a select few will be added to my portfolio. Everything will still be displayed here though for your viewing pleasure. I was using my 5D paired with a beautiful 85mm 1.2L. What a great lens, it is nothing but GLASS from front to back, and boy does it take some great photos. There are going to be quite a few pictures from this series of photos, so this post is probably going to be quite long. The photos will be posted in separate galleries though on the Gallery page. Anyhow, Enjoy!
Takko Machi Beef and Garlic Festival!
I went up to Takko Machi with some friends because there was a festival going on. The festival was mainly to celebrate “garlic.” That’s right, “garlic.” Takko Machi is actually one of the world’s top three garlic distributors. They also have their very own Garlic Queen as you will see in the photos below. At this event, they had a visiting Garlic Queen from one of the other two major cities, Gilroy, California. The queens performed on stage, mostly just singing. Something notable about the queen from California was that she sang like she was in a Disney movie.
Needless to say, the garlic was great at this festival. They had an open roast of an entire cow, yes, an ENTIRE COW. It was being roasted over an open flame. By the time we arrived there, half the cow had been cut up and portioned out already for consumption. It was 500JPY a slice! I couldn’t wait that long, so I went to the other BBQ tables and bought a pre-made package of beef and vegetables. Aside from the windy conditions at first, the BBQ went well.
Among the many performances, there were two that stood out the most. One was the local cultural dances. The second was the Misawa Air Base Line Dancing team. In any case, enjoy the pictures!
