February in a nutshell.
February has been a very good month for exploring the countryside. Around this time of the year, everything is dead and cold and waiting for the spring - it seems like there's even less to do out here, and has the tendency to make you feel even more like a prisoner with nowhere to run.
It really is a very easy trap to fall into. I am still caught in this vicious cycle of feeling overly depressed and overly happy. So I've been forcing myself to go out and explore!! And it has been very rewarding.
But enough angst, and onto random photos!!
February 3 was 節分 or the first day of spring - lots of celebrations going on all over the country, and of course in Kamogawa as well! My supervisor and I went out to the Setsubun celebration at Seichoji Temple so I could take photos for my newsletter...since it was work that also means I got to watch from a 関係者 only spot! Yay for connections~. This is the mamemaki - throwing out beans to drive away evil. Many of these mamemaki celebrations have big guests to come throw the beans - most of these people are politicians, but we had two entertainer people! One is Aoki Ryuji - super famous for his imitations of enka singer Misora Hibari...and the other was some model? that no one had ever heard of. She was pretty though.
Here's a better image of people falling all over themselves to grab the beans.
A packet of the beans, called "fukumame" or lucky beans? Getting one with a 5 yen coin it means you're even more lucky. An old lady I know caught these for me though.
At night, I went to the Futomi area of Kamogawa, where there was another festival called 越年 (おとし). Basically the locals build 5 giant bundles of bamboo along the coastline. These things are between 15-20 feet tall....and then they light them on fire, along with New Year's decorations, etc. to burn away bad luck. My supervisor and I had them throw in the horrible omikuji that we got earlier at Seichoji :D
I was trying to get a better shot of the burning daruma dolls, which are the round things to the bottom right. But it was really HOT! It must have been below freezing that night, but we were sweating because well, it was a pretty awesome bonfire.
Afterwards, the locals - many of them fishermen, randomly were passing out fried fish cooked in the mini fires next to the giant bonfires. I'm always curious as to how much this stuff costs if you tried to order it at a restaurant, because I once told a Japanese friend about the kinds of food I get here for free, and she told me that I was eating super expensive stuff o_o.
The following weekend, I had a tour for my tourism class again. It was freezing AND there was a 4.something earthquake - I had no idea, but I remember wondering if I was getting sick because I felt so nauseous? but it was fun, because we got to wander around IN the rice paddies of Oyama Senmaida, which are normally off limits to the public. We picked nanohana (to eat!), random mountain weeds (also to eat!), and made futomaki festival sushi.
I'll admit I had my reservations about eating plants that would normally be considered weeds - especially after seeing them randomly plucked off of the ground and mountainside, but they taste really good as tempura. But then again, maybe just about everything tastes really good as tempura.
I've been getting back into a habit of cooking as much as possible again. Which might explain why my gas bill is twice as expensive as it normally is...but I am having fun nonetheless. This might be the best thing I made this month - although it doesn't look too pretty. I was trying to use the fajitas I brought from back home, so I made a mizuna, red pepper, and chicken filling for the inside. It was pretty awesome <3 And mizuna are so delicious but so CHEAP! They might be my new favorite vegetable.
The only thing that really bites about February is that it's so damn COLD! Last week it snowed a decent amount, even out here in Southern Chiba, which is pretty rare since it's relatively warm here. The snow didn't actually stick here in Kamogawa, but it did on all the roads heading up north to Chiba/Tokyo. This can be pretty terrifying since all of these roads are pretty narrow mountain roads with tight curves...especially with a car not-so-fantastic, like mine. But I managed to go to Ichihara, located next to Chiba City, and back, with no issues, so I'm thankful. It was actually kind of fun to drive in the snow, now that I look back on it.
On the weekend right before Valentine's Day, I braved the department store with a friend to get our chocolate shopping done! Most of mine were homemade - but it was just as annoying to trying and get the wrappings. I'm sure I was very irritable by the end of our trip, but my friend was very nice about it.
A picture of the finished product. I'm hiding their dismal appearance in a pretty wrapping...I was a horrible person this year and made something crazy easy!!! I just made chocolate fudge...and the recipe was just chocolate chips + condensed milk. o_O Everyone was super nice and said that they were good though. :/
Anyway, just one more week and February is done!! Thank goodness - although time is flying so fast it's a bit freaky. And today I've taken my first day off in a long time to do absolutely NOTHING! Combined with my sleepover at Kicchan's yesterday, this weekend is probably the best thing I've done for myself so far this year...and perhaps the random twitching in my right eye has even gone away. For the most part, at least.
Hope everyone is well!!