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Saturday, April 24, 2010

Uma Samurai

Mom heard that this time of year there is a horse archery festival up in Towada. It sounded cool. My jaw and face is still sore, but I was feeling ready to get out. This was also our first outing into the country without Dad navigating. We got there in good time, so I guess we did alright.

We were hoping to see cherry blossoms....I think. I may have been to out of it to grasp whether that was the goal. But I wanted to see cherry blossoms. The trees are budding, but it is still a bit early.

Towada is a pretty nice town. There's all sorts of things to do, and it is far enough from Misawa that seeing Americans isn't an every day occurrence so people were a bit nicer than usual.

I honestly have no idea what that is.....a huge marshmallow house?

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The gang

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There was a lane, with cherry trees on either side, that the riders would ride down and shoot targets (3 in all) as they galloped. WOW! It looked really hard. I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if someone fell off their horse....I found out. It looked painful.

A nice Japanese gentleman was there who really liked us. He told us what was happening. He and I talked for a LOOONG time. He would tell me who and where the rider was from (because I can't read the brochures provided). We talked about Kanji and we all agreed writing it is hard. We talked about English....he said a lot of Japanese have trouble writing English, I told him not to worry, most Americans have trouble writing English too. lol He asked me what state I was from...Texas. He got really excited because that is where President Bush is from. He was like, "oh! Bush! Bush!" I wasn't sure what he was talking about at first, but then I understood. "Hai! President Bush!" We talked about Bush for a bit. He said he was a good honest man. AWWW.....I kinda wish I could tell Bush that. That poor man took so much trash off the left during those 8 years.

We talked about a lot of stuff! Rodeos, festivals, colleges, languages, Presidents, states/prefectures. It was really cool.


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They had vendors and pony rides...the usual stuff you would expect to find at a Japanese outing. Arielle and I were speculating the price of the pony rides...we laughed and she said, "in America those things are us ally like 5 dollars for going in a circle!" We both laughed. I then asked our Japanese friend how much the ride was, "500 yen." ($5). We found that humorous.

Jr. Archers.....I love the saddle
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A lot of people don't know this, but during the Edo Period, Levi jeans were really popular and in use. A lot of Samurai wore them for day-to-day stuff, but wore the kimono for ceremonies. Oh yeah.

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Um...this is really small...but that is what it was like!


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It was really a pretty park!


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Tables on tatame mats make great picnic spots!

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A fountain across from the park. The bells chime.


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The guy is starting to point towards me...I think he was surprised to see an American pointing a pink camera at him.

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It was a great day! I had a blast.

6 comments:

Natalie said...

OooO! A giant marshmallow house! Well, you'd never go hungry living there. :)

Michael said...

It looks like y'all had a great tiem. I will go next year. :)

Great post, Jared.

Dad

Jared said...

I guess not...sugur coma! lol

YAY!

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

That gentleman was great. I hope we find someone like him on every adventure...certainly helped to figure out what was going on. LOL

Yeah - it was the Cherry blossom archery festival...I expected some blossoms. LOL

Araken said...

That looks like a lot of fun... and educational, too!

Jared said...

we should've hired him!

It was! I love that about Japan, you don't have to go far to have an adventure!

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