The Ricefield-Diary: Time is running...

... and it's running fast, as if something not so nice was behind it. God thanks there seem to be mostly good things behind, around and before myself. So the time that runs for me right now is mostly exciting, fun, and interesting, though once in a while mixed with moments of tiredness when I wish for a few more quiet minutes.

But I think that after this next weekend,

when Notoyosakoi things will hopefully calm down a bit and I will also have time to do a bit more for school and my urushi projects, to write my blog a bit more and to explore this Japan around me a little more.

Because the rice in its fields is growing nicely, and they are so beautiful and definitely worth being shown to you guys out there. And the mountains aren't bad either.

Last weekend, as part of a big group of Urushi-students, I was going up further north to a city called Wajima to an Urushi-symposium. We drove off in several cars on Saturday morning, me together with some 2^nd grade students in Ogawa-sensei's car. The two-and-a-half-hour drive was great! First we drove along the sea-shore, rough and bluish-gray, cliffs stark in the distance, then we passed through mountains of thick, lush green and valleys with small, rectangular rice fields. Our first stop was at a Urushi workshop, like a miniature factory, where seven people produce Urushi-wares. The house was beautiful enough that I would have liked to move into it. It had a successful combination of a Western-looking, high, arched ceiling with adjacent low Japanese rooms. Something like that would be great to realize in an own house sometime.

After we were shown the production rooms and several breathtaking pieces of urushi-ware we went on to Wajima city itself to attend the Urushi Symposium which started with the opening of an urushi exhibition featuring works of students from several Japanese Art Universities. There were very interesting works among the exhibits and it was also nice to see urushi used in a 'non-useful' context once in a while. Meaning it being used not only for table ware or other commodities, but for artworks as well. I also spoke shortly with another German residing in Japan, a woman studying at the University of Hiroshima.

Then there was of course lots of talking, as usually is at symposiums, talking of which I might have understood more if I hadn't had an empty stomach which made it hard to concentrate. We had been late to leave from the workshop, so we went to the symposium without having had any dinner at all. God thanks the symposium ended with lots of food!

After that the day came to a close with the drive back to Takaoka, which was as nice as the drive there. It had started to rain and there was a heavy mist hanging in the valleys, so that while crossing them over bridges the world around looked exactly like an asian ink drawing; reality softly unraveling at the edges. And to top it all off, when we stopped back at the seashore at around 20:30, about an hour after the sun had gone down, we were presented with another wonder: Wave for wave, otherwise invisible in the pitchblack of the night, rolled onto shore with a brightly neonblue crest. The phenomenon is caused by bioilluminiscent algea and we stood awwing and 'kakkoiiii!”-ing ('cool!!') at it from the side of the road.

The sunday was for sewing the yosakoi costume as well as for 'phoning home'. And then this weekend there's finally Notoyosakoi. I'm starting to get a bit nervous, but in a positiv way. We've been training a lot, and even though the whole thing is maybe still a bit rough in some parts I think it will look really good. And even if it doesn't, it will be a lot of fun at least. It's still a bit hard to get a real connection to people because of the language barrier, but movement is universal. And I am slowly getting better at talking and understanding which encourages the more 'English-shy' people to make contact with me, too.

In one and a half hour we will have our last training before Notoyosakoi, this time in full dress. Right now I still think they might have overdone it a little with the color choices, but then who knows, maybe as a group it all will fit together really well. Howsoever, I can't wait for the weekend!

And after it, there will hopefully be a video, and many pictures, and also a little more time generally. Until then, here a few impressions from our training as well as a few pictures from last weekend's trip!

Yosakoi