Mon. Sept. 22 – Hiroshi’s party, “Sumimasen!!! Sumimasen!!!” &

Heather-sensei, Mari (Yuuka?) and I hopped on a train bound for Aizu Wakamatsu. We were off to party at Hiroshi’s house, complete with his family’s own ramen noodles (oishi!) The girls and I broke out the sake we bought from our trip to Aizu Wakamatsu during our home stay in August. When you mix it with cider, sake actually tastes great! It was really nice to sit down with JETs from across the prefecture. I even saw Sarah again, who is friends with my ol’ Filipino sidekick from childhood. (Side note: Another “Whoa! I’m in Japan” moment – we all filed into a large tatami room to sleep. I think the head count was about 15 people).

The next day, we groggily got up and headed to the Samurai Festival. Basically, these different groups parade down the main street dressed as impressive samurai. Some of the more prestigious samurais sat on horses that were also led down the street. At times, canons blared and sword demonstrations wowed the crowds. One of the parade participants is apparently kind of a big deal as a television star, so lots of people were busy snapping photos of him.

Dressed in elaborate samurai robes, they paraded down the main street in orderly lines. Some of the men wore awkward black hairpieces, to make it look like they had small faux-hawks a la samurai. At the end of the day, all of the samurais congregated in front of the Aizu Wakamatsu castle for one last hurrah. It was pretty cool to see that even some samurai groups included old folks. Represent, senior citizens. Represent!