Setsubun and Other Fun Things

On Saturday, Chichibu had small festival called the "Setsubun" held at the Chichibu Shrine. For this festival, men dress up as devils and do the "devil dance." Some are red, some are green. The point of the festival is to catch beans that are thrown from the top of a building by the shrine and eat them. One is supposed to eat their age in beans, plus one for good luck. So, I ate 28 beans. They are roasted soybeans, too. Mmm... It is really fun when you have old men launching rock hard soybeans at your forehead. Oh...and as you eat the beans, you yell "ONI WA SOTO, FUKU WA UCHI", which means "Devil out, happiness in." I threw beans at my friends and yelled it. I will have happiness for one year. wOo HoO!

Here are the men who threw the beans...masochists.


The Dancing Devils

Teddy beating on the devils.



Last Saturday I went to my friend David's house in Hasuda where he cooked Mexican food for our deprived stomachs. Pretty tasty. We had a lot of fun.

And here is a picture of lovely Mt. Buko with some snow on it. Almost looks beautiful.

I also went to a going-away party for one of the engineers at the City Hall. He is moving to Uganda to help rebuild the country's infrastructure. Yeah...I don't know what that means. :)

Mr. Yukihiro Kaneta and his daughter Hanano. This guy is moving to Sweden for a year to help promote tourism in Europe (he is taking the DVD that I did a voiceover for with him...ah!)

Some going-away music

How many pictures will it take? (Sachiko and Susume)


Yeah!

Sachi (I love this woman...she is too cute...and funny too) and Hanano

On Thursday, my junior high school kids made tofu. It was fun to watch and ended up being pretty darn tasty.

This made me laugh. Ana and her "Men Are No Damn Good Apron."

Ryo, one of the only loudmouth, punk-ass kids in the school. But I like him anyway.

Ryo again.



What happens when the kids get ahold of the camera...

And finally, on Friday, I taught my first graders how to say names of family members. It so happens that the word "uncle" sounds very much like the Japanese word "unko", which means "poo", "caca", "doo-doo", or whatever other scientific word you prefer to call it. Need more hints? (and this is how it is drawn):



The kids were laughing the whole lesson and it's a good thing I knew what "unko" meant, or I would have been very confused. Four hours later, while sitting at my desk, I hear the sweet screams of 6 year-olds yelling "UNKO" down the hallway, because of course, they are just practicing their English.