{"id":12,"date":"2007-10-14T19:39:43","date_gmt":"2007-10-15T00:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/?p=12"},"modified":"2014-08-18T17:16:37","modified_gmt":"2014-08-18T22:16:37","slug":"cops-okazaki-and-more-nagoya-festival-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/?p=12","title":{"rendered":"COPS: Okazaki and More Nagoya Festival Fun."},"content":{"rendered":"

I went back to Nagoya today, because even though I got sunburned, the festival was going to go on with or without me.<\/span><\/p>\n

I rode my evil little bicycle to the station today, because even though it’s uncomfortable, it beats walking.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the way to the station, I saw two guys riding on the same bike. Then I saw a police car pull them over, and 3 cops piled out to lecture and\/or ticket them. Bad boys, bad boys<\/em>… COPS: Okazaki!<\/span><\/p>\n

After watching that action unfold, off to Nagoya I went.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dashi and Kagura Parades<\/h3>\n

I managed to catch both the Dashi <\/em>and Kagura <\/em>float parades, and the childrens’ Mikoshi <\/em>parade, as well as a parade for the sister cities, which I skipped. (Fast Fact: L.A. is a sister city to Nagoya.)<\/span><\/p>\n

The Dashi <\/em>are these giant floats on carts that have all sorts of bright decorations on them, and karakuri <\/em>mechanical dolls on them that perform various little dances and act out plays.<\/p>\n

\"Dashi<\/a><\/p>\n

They’re setting up the dashi<\/em> floats now after wheeling them into the square.<\/p>\n

\"Dashi<\/a><\/p>\n

Mid-performance!<\/p>\n

\"Dashi<\/a><\/p>\n

Special effects!<\/p>\n

As impressive as the plays are the people who have to turn the Dashi <\/em>floats, which have wheels that don’t turn.<\/p>\n

\"These<\/a><\/p>\n

\"More<\/a><\/p>\n

The Kagura <\/em>floats are these floats that are basically drums with lots of gold ornamentation on them, and kids just beat the hell out of these drums with long sticks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Kagura<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Kagura<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s loud.<\/p>\n

The Children’s Parade<\/h3>\n

Then came the kids’ parade. That was mostly lots of cute mascot-y things, and weird things, like a lion-dance-like shinkansen<\/em> (bullet train).<\/p>\n

\"Children's<\/a><\/p>\n

And this rabbit-thing was cute:<\/p>\n

\"Children's<\/a><\/p>\n

Then there was an appearance by the Nagoya Fire Board Marching Band, and their color guard, the Lily Angels. They were all very good.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Nagoya<\/a><\/p>\n

Tubas!<\/p>\n

\"Nagoya<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lily Angels:<\/p>\n

\"Nagoya<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Nagoya<\/a><\/p>\n

I saw some cars and mascots with people from sister cities, and started to get bored and decided to move on to the park.<\/p>\n

After the Parades, Wandering Around Nagoya<\/h3>\n

As I was heading to the park, I saw a building that was called the Robot Museum, and I was intrigued.<\/p>\n

\"Robot<\/a><\/p>\n

But apparently it had just shuttered its doors for good. Darn it.<\/p>\n

\"Robot<\/a><\/p>\n

They even bagged up the exhibits.<\/p>\n

\"Robot<\/a><\/p>\n

In the park there were a bunch of guys wearing 50s-style outfits, dancing. They even had the greased-back hair.<\/p>\n

\"50's<\/a><\/p>\n

\"50's<\/a><\/p>\n

There were the usual festival stalls for stuff like taiyaki<\/em>, takoyaki<\/em>, and yakisoba<\/em>, but I gave those a miss. (The guys are still dancing here.)<\/p>\n

\"50's<\/a><\/p>\n

I liked the fountain in the park.<\/p>\n

\"Fountain\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Fountain<\/a><\/p>\n

And you can see the Nagoya TV tower in the park as well:<\/p>\n

\"Park<\/a><\/p>\n

On to Atsuta Shrine<\/h3>\n

Then it was time to head to Atsuta Shrine for a martial arts expo. Apparently they have mastered the art of hiding giant buildings by not putting up any signs near the respective subway stops. I saw signs for everything but <\/em>the shrine coming out of the subway, so I wound up walking the wrong way for 10 minutes until I figured it out.<\/span><\/p>\n

By the time I got there, I was fading, so I strolled around a bit, watched some Iaido<\/em>, saw all the cute kids for shichi-go-san<\/em> (a Shinto ceremony for kids aged 7, 5, and 3, hence the name shichi-go-san, which is Japanese for 7, 5, and 3)<\/span> and I didn’t feel like taking pictures. The lighting was bad, and to be honest, I just didn’t feel like it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also skipped the omikuji <\/em>(omikuji<\/em> are paper fortune slips you can usually get at temples and shrines), because the I didn’t feel like jinxing myself when I’m not even one week into my trip.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u00c2\u00a0 headed back to Nagoya station, where I ate many tasty things (another chicken & egg sandwich and an iced cocoa, which were both delicious), then back home to ride the buttbuster 9000 back to the dorm.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now I’ll do some laundry, some homework, and sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n

Men’s Pocky Is Awesome<\/h3>\n

Oh, and I had a box of “Men’s Pocky” for dessert tonight. Don’t laugh. It’s awesome.<\/p>\n

The chocolate is nice and dark, not too sweet, just the way I like it.<\/p>\n

For those who don’t know, Pocky is a snack made of thin pretzel sticks covered with chocolate (and other things), and are laced with something akin to crack, because they are that<\/em> addictive.<\/p>\n

“Men’s Pocky” is made with a dark chocolate coating, because in Japan, manly men aren’t supposed to like sweet things. It’s, well, unmanly. Manly men should like bitter things.<\/p>\n

So this is the candy for manly men… if manly men ate candy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, they’re too busy eating rusty nails and the organs of weird creatures that taste like battery acid.<\/p>\n

Because they’re manly!<\/p>\n

I’m up to over 500 photos now, and it’s only been 4 days. I’m in trouble. Thinking of the photo editing alone makes me shudder.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tomorrow is a rest\/recovery day, with more classes. I don’t plan on doing much.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thursday, I’m on my way to Kyoto to see some temples. I can’t wait for that. I’m going to hit all the highlights I can.<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, a postscript– I went to a drug store to pick up something for my sunburn, and to my great surprise, they sell topical prednisone cream over the counter. I found this out because I asked for something, and the pharmacist gave me some to use. (For those who don’t know, prednisone is a powerful steroid anti-inflammatory drug, usually only available by prescription in the U.S.) So now I have something else to get rid of before I leave Japan, I guess.<\/p>\n

Remember– you can’t bring those sorts of things back to the U.S. without a prescription!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went back to Nagoya today, because even though I got sunburned, the festival was going to go on with or without me. I rode my evil little bicycle to the station today, because even though it’s uncomfortable, it beats walking. On the way to the station, I saw two guys riding on the same […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,823,5],"tags":[162,148,159,827,160,161,163,164,150,100,151,158],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan-trip","category-photos","category-travel","tag-atsuta-shrine","tag-bicycle","tag-dashi","tag-japan2007","tag-kagura","tag-marching-band","tag-mens-pocky","tag-mikoshi","tag-nagoya","tag-okazaki","tag-parade","tag-police","category-3-id","category-823-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1430,"href":"http:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/1430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}