Gongo Matsuri

The night I left for Tokyo, I attended my town's festival: Gongo Matsuri.
It centres around a water sprite called a Kappa/Gongo who looks like a frog with legs and lives in the Yoshii-gawa river...yes- exciting times in Tsuyama. Anyway, it's a big deal and people from surrounding towns come to enter the dance contest and watch the hanabi (fireworks) display.




The guy in the costume randomly wanted to be in our picture...




Yasumi, Sean and Jane


The gaikokojinn (foreigner) crew of Tsuyama...

And here's a song I was a little obsessed with for a while. Enjoy.

Pre- Tokyo

This Sunday night I will be boarding an overnight bus to TOKYO.


The movie 'Lost In Translation' can be given a lot of credit for me upping sticks and moving to Japan, and since then I've just been waiting for the time off to visit Tokyo. Yes, it's just a film, but the images of Tokyo burnt into my mind and it's the Japan I've been looking for but have yet to see ever since I've been here.
I have a tendency to get a bit carried away and build things up until they are something more than they really are, so I hope Tokyo will be what I've been looking for...

And on with the pics...


This is my Japanese teacher, Yasumi. She is amazingly patient with me as I am still particularly stupid when it comes to Japanese- and is a lot of fun to teach rude English phrases to- latest: "Don't be such a tosser!"


This is my next door neighbour and her daughter (still don't know their names which is bad as she invited me, Wil and Gemma round to hers for lunch and put on a great spread including FISH AND CHIPS [drool]). She took us for a drive to some amazingly gorgeous river.


My third year students at my first school put on a display of taiko (Japanese drums) for us after I taught at the English summer camp- it rocked.


We're a little bit addicted to the picture booths- check me trying to lick Eddie's ear... The Japanese girl is called Nozomi.


This is from our friend Eric's gig. He's the only foreigner in an all Japanese band. They mostly do Japanese rock and even though I could only recognise the odd word, it was a good gig.

Well that's me updated for a bit- off to Tokyo this weekend, back for a bit then off to the island of Tsushima- google it. I'll be taking pics like a fiend as usual.