Exploring Nagahama

Since yesterday was Sunday, Alex and I had plans to meet up with some friends Manny and Joe and explore some things in the immediate area. Alex and I should have gotten to the station on time to meet them, but apparently there was a jazz festival happening right through where we commute to get to the station. The streets were closed off to cars and stores were having sales, there were people selling foods from stands on the streets, and there were chairs lined along the road in front of a stage where various performers took their turns. There were even plushy mascot characters roaming the streets.

One of such mascot characters, Ne-ne chan

We tried to get through the crowd as quickly as possible, and made it to the station. Manny had brought his (new, I guess?) girlfriend, so although they followed us everywhere, they were basically in their own little world. So basically everything from here on out applies to Alex, Joe, and myself (while Manny and his girlfriend passively followed).
We went back to the hub of the festivities, Nagahama Ootemon Street. For you kanji enthusiasts, this is a pretty easy one, 長浜大手門通り. Nagahama big hand gate street, I guess would be the translation XD. Actually, what it is is a street lined with shop after shop and a roof over the top of it. The joining streets have lots of shops as well, but the main drag is this street, and it seems like a fun place to shop. We unfortunately didn't get to do much of that though.

^Nagahama Ootemon Toori                  ^Kaiyodo Figure Museum 

 ^The street is covered by a roof                 ^Kuro Kabe, a famous glass wares shop

^My ramune ice cream and Alex's kurogoma ice cream

The group of us wanted to go through the Figure Museum. It looks so cool- there are dragons and video game characters and samurai and dinosaurs all around the outside and it just looks so awesome. It was so crowded though, that we could hardly do more than shop in the gift shop for a few minutes before giving up on that idea. We then went and got ice cream from one of the many stands on the road. Mine, this blue one above, is Ramune flavored- Ramune being a Japanese soda. You may have seen copies around, it's the glass bottle with the marble in the top. It kind of reminds me of bubble gum flavor, but there is still an extra something. Alex got Kurogoma, Kuro meaning black and Goma meaning sesame seeds.

We then explored a temple near my home. It was really big and there was a play ground on the temple grounds. It was very pretty- stones and flowers and lanterns and gates. 

After that, we walked back downtown and enjoyed more of the festivities, taking pictures with more mascots, watching the musicians. A bunch of guys our age were working selling desserts and because we talked with them and took a picture with them, they gave us two of everything on the plate for the price of the one ^_^. As we ate, they then performed card magic tricks for us (yeah, remember how I said in the very beginning there would be magic? Mhm.). It seemed that things were winding down, so we headed towards the station. Along the way, we stopped at a well known shrine dedicated to the founder of Nagahama. Now, there is a difference between a temple and a shrine. To me they seem quite similar in appearance, the same gates, the same bells and clapping and bowing and praying. Temples, though, are called お寺, Otera, and they are for Buddhists. A shrine on the other hand, is a 神社, Jinja, and it is for this Shinto religion. This shrine was an Inari shrine, a shrine dedicated to the Shinto God Inari. Inari is the God for many agricultural related things, fertility, and foxes, which is how I new this was an Inari shrine. There were Kitsune, Japanese foxes, guarding the whole place. Inari's Kitsune are supposed to be white and are messengers for the Gods.

 

             ^Can you see the Kitsune statue next to the shrine?          ^Alex ringing the prayers bell

If any of that information is wrong and you know for sure, please tell me. I never claimed to be an expert on the subject, just a fan of Japanese culture :)

Afterwards, Alex and I left our fellow explorers at the station while we went into Heiwado, our version here of AL Plaza in Hikone, and we did another purikura before going home. We had an interesting visitor that evening, but I will save that for later so I can devote an entry to it.

On an entirely random note, I noticed that my viewings for my blog jumped from an average 3 (yes, 3...come on, people) page views a day to over 9,000 in one day. I thought it was maybe a fluke, but I looked at the traffic flow, and apparently, something called the Society News wrote an article about my Onsen entry! XD. I could read some of it, but I had Okaasan translate the rest of it, and they make me sound like such a sweet enthusiastic American who learns the magic of the Onsen and appreciation of the Japanese culture. In case you're interested at attempting to read the Japanese (or make fun of how bad google translate translates it), have a look: http://news.searchina.ne.jp/disp.cgi?y=2012&d=0625&f=national_0625_015.shtml. I'm not complaining. It got me more views. No comments, oddly enough. So please, please read and comment. And don't comment to tell me "we're all reading", because as you can see, I can see how many people are reading and where they are from, and I know we are all reading is not true -__-. I know I can't expect appreciation all the time, but I was asked to make this blog, so I don't quite get why those people who asked me to write it refuse to even read it. Whatever, there isn't much I can do about it I guess. Now though, it's time to get ready for bed, since I just spent three hours on this. Tomorrow we have another cultural activity at school, so look forward to that. Ja mata ne!

Mary

Location: Bed

Mood: Still sick **cough cough**

Listening to: In your Eyes - Kalafina

Japanese for the day: これをひとつおねがいします kore o hitotsu onegaishimasu - I'll have one of these, please (point the the thing you want! This is good when you have a menu in front of you that you can't read ^_^)

And here is some purikura, in case you were wondering ^_^