happy new year!!! Part II

What's next on the blog catch up schedule? Mmmmm. I think Ruminashion. Which, while it might sound like a bovine activity, is really a giant light extravaganza/ memorial for the Kobe earthquake.

Tuesday, December 19th.
I was getting on the bus after staying at school late. I had been fighting another cold and was looking forward to getting home, skipping aikido, and getting in a good sleep. I sat down on the bus seat and by cell chimed sweetly to tell me I had another message. I checked my phone, it was Lexi. "Illumination ends Thursday," my phone read, "Let's go to Kobe." Well, scratch plans to get some sleep. I got back to the apartment, rounded up Mac and Lex, and we headed off to Kobe.

We didn't know where to go when we set off, but the giant crowds and megaphone wielding city workers easily led the way. It started off as a big exercise in herding management. If there's anything to make you feel more like you're part of a flock, this was it. Huge swarms of people proceeded from the train station, down streets lined with crowd barriers, and police officers lazily keeping watch to make sure no one was line-jumping. "Lazy" extends so far that I caught one officer sleeping on his feet. We paused in the stream of people so that I could take this picture of a traditional Shinto torii gate, which is used to delineate 'sacred spaces' from the ordinary. They are usually around shrines and such, but occassionally they'll be in the middle of busy, modern streets. What makes this one great is not only it's size, but the name of the cafe next to it.

"Patisserie Tooth Tooth"

We made it past the gate and the sleeping guard, and continued with the herd. The route took us past all the high end shops, Channel, Gucci, other places I know nothing about. When we got to the lights, it was phenomenal.

There were all these individual, enormous gates filled with colored lights, going on forever.


After constructing this enormous tunnel of lights, I guess they just couldn't stop. And so... they built an enormous electric cathedral of light and blasted operatic versions of christmas carols in a park, filled with hundreds of Japanese people snapping pictures with their cell phones. It was a little surreal.

Crowds at the start

After the show, Lex and I sampled the usual variety of Japanese fair food and headed back to Himeji. Well, Mac left while we were eating, I left after sampling a fish cracker, with brown sauce, uncooked egg, puffed corn, and mayonaise (uck) and a delicious crepe. Now, why anyone would put an uncooked/semicooked egg on top of a cracker and give it to you to walk around with is completely beyond me. How anyone manages to eat this contraption without being completely covered in egg clearly knows more than I do.

Hey! Look at the enormous fish head!
Fish heads!!!

And so concludes today's blogging.
Happy reading, love Al