Narita Drum Festival

Yesterday was the Narita Drum Festival, or the Narita Taiko Matsuri. We went as an IES Field trip to spend a day in Narita to do different things.

Actually, the day started with me waking up around 7:00 to take an early train, and then monorail, to Chiba Park. I'm glad that I did as it was absolutely beautiful and I will definitely go back there sometime soon. I couldn't find the monorail for a while so I lost time that could have been spent in the park, but such is life. I eventually found it and rode it to the park to spend half an hour of marvelous park time there.

After that I took a train to Narita, which is where we flew into to, to meet IES Staff for the beginning of our events. I was actually 20 minutes early, which is much better than the people that were 40 minutes late, so we ended up waiting around. I got a Lemon Fanta, [soda], but I didn't see on the can that it had a Jello type thing in it that you're supposed to shake before opening. So I had this soda that had jello in it that I couldn't really drink. Oh well =P

Our first destination was walking down the main street where the Taiko Festival is located. There were lots of people and a handful of small grouped street performers displaying their Taiko skills. Every group was impressive. We arrived at our destination after about 10 minutes, which was an Unagi Restaurant. For those unfamiliar with the term, it's eel. The surprised emotion you're probably thinking about eel with was what I was thinking when we got there. I had never had eel before and the first thing that comes to mind is a slimy, clam like thing. Well, the eel was actually really delicious. It was broiled I think and served over rice. It honestly tasted a lot like fish. It's a delicacy in Japan and we went with our whole IES group, E-Pals, and homestay parents for those that have homestays. The meal was really good and it was overall just a nice lunch.

Afterwards I wandered to a little park and on the way got some sakura flavored ice cream again. It is really good, and I do believe is made from the actual petals as it tastes sweet but not really artificial.

After that began our temple tour, where the IES staff brought us to the different temples and gave us information on all of them. The neatest part was when we got to attend a ceremony complete with monks and ceremonial Taiko drums. The actual purpose of the ceremony I wasn't sure of other than it being a Buddhist ceremony with fire. However, during it, the monks could take an item from you and bless it ridding it of bad luck on the fire, so I gave them my bookbag.

After that we finished touring the temples and saw some really neat carvings on the statues and buildings that told of the tales of the Buddhas. It was really neat and the whole experience was just neat to see all the different kinds of temples.

The best part was after this, where the group tour officially ended and we were free to do whatever we wanted. The main Taiko Drum performance started at 5:30 so we had an hour so me and a couple other people went and walked around Narita Park. Let's just say that this is the most beautiful place I've ever been in my life. Yoyogi takes second now, Narita Park beats it, but in a different way. It doesn't have that many Sakura trees, but it makes up for it with it's natural streams and waterfall. Yes, waterfall. It was gorgeous. We wandered around here for a while before going into town for the festival.

The actual festival was amazing as well. The opening groups were made up of a dozen or so performers, and they were pretty good. Then a lot of the IES people went to go drinking, which in my opinion is a really silly thing to do and miss out on the Taiko performances of some of the best groups from Japan, but who am I to judge. Anyway, a girl from my school stayed and watched the rest with me along with 2 other people from IES. The final performance group was a group of 4 males, they played a large taiko drum, smaller drums, an Asian flute thing, and xylophones. This group was the best musical performance I think I've ever witnessed, and while I have bits and pieces of it taped [my camera was running out of battery and space], I wasn't close enough to capture the power of the Taiko drum. You can feel the drum in a way that a video could never capture. It made the insane crowd rush and chilly weather completely worth it. I'm not sure what event in the near future will top the amazingness of that last performance group, if anything will. The people I was with completely appreciated it as well, and it's for people like this that I am glad I am in Japan with to immerse and appreciate the culture.

That was last night, today I went with a small group of people to go find some Cherry Blossoms. We were going to a park in Shinjuku but for some reason that park was closing and there was a change of plans so we ended up at some park I don't even know the name of somewhere on the Tozai Subway Line route, haha. It was nice enough, there weren't many flowers and the grass was all run down, but there were dogs and a large pond. We played frisbee there, and the frisbee almost flew into a few people and did manage to go into the water a couple times. It wasn't the greatest place to go but it was somewhere new, so I have no complaints. I managed to get a lot of reading done on the train there and at the park I got all my Japanese homework done, so that was cool.

Okay, so pictures. At this time Day 19 at Narita has 2 albums, I took a lot of pictures, and be sure to check for today's in the 14, 15, 17, 18, and 20 album. Here are all the links.

Day 19 : Narita - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2076541&id=3708410&l=29cc5ff993
Day 19 : Nartita Part 2 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2076567&id=3708410&l=9b57bbae4d
Random days 14 - 20 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2076231&id=3708410&l=95b66184ba

Enjoy!

PS. I'm going to work on getting the videos uploaded too.