This weekend it was time for the Hokkaido Jingu festival, a temple festival with stands selling food, sweets and that sort of thing in the Maruyama and Nakajima parks. There is also a parade with omikoshi, small shrines carried by a lot of people. I went to Maruyama Park, which is between my school and my dormitory, on my way home from school on Friday, and had a look at the stands. It was bigger than I had expected and there was a long row of fleamarket stands. They sold everything imaginable, even cameras and food products. There were just as many people as I expected. Last year I went to Nakajima Park with my classmate Hans during this festival, and it was so crowded i could hardly believe it. It was like two cues, one for people entering the park, leading around the park and back as the other cue for people leaving the park. Not exactly the place for a peaceful stroll. If you got off the main route there was some breathing space though. And there is a pond where you can row in a boat for a while before they call you back. The pond was pretty small so people just rowed back and forth or round and round. But I guess the thing is getting some privacy with your girlfriend. There aren´t many places where you can be alone with eachother unless one of you have an own apartment. That is why there are so-called love hotels, where couples can pay for a private room by the hour or for a whole night. It is much cheaper than a regular hotel and it is popular among young traveling groups, since you don´t pay per person. Anyway, I really wanted to go and see the omikoshis in the parade on Saturday, but unfortunately that was also the date for the Tokai School Festival (aka Kengakusai) which I really wanted to go to. The festival is realy tiny, taking place in the small parking lot in front of the school, but the mood is good and it is a great opportunity to meet all my Tokai friends. It beats any big festival any day.

Said and done, Saturday morning I went to the school festival, but first I stopped by Odori Park just in case the parade was already there. Of course it wasn´t and I just wasted money for getting off and on the subway. When I arrived at the Tokai university the YOSAKOI performance I hurried to see since I missed the school team at the festival had already started. (Well I saw the Tokai school team on tv but it isn´t the same thing as seeing it in person.) There were guest teams performing as well, and the Tokai team performed last year´s dance, and the one from two years ago too. When I got into the festival area I directly spotted Asuka. At first I didn´t recognize him because he has cut his hair, but after a couple of seconds I realized it really was him. Next, I met Takumi, who was a bit tired of work and wanted to go to Sweden again. We agreed that we should go and have a drink together some time. Then I went to the IFA tent, where they sold gyûdon (meat on rice) this year. Except for the people I met at the IFA party earlier I also met Macchi who told me all about his trip to Sweden and Norway. We went up to a classroom where exchange students had made small exhibitions about their stays in different countries. On the way up there I stopped for some mochi pounding and took a quick look at the tea ceremony where Kayo worked as an assistant. 

When we got to the classroom, Macchi had a whole wall with writing about his trip. I saw a lot of great photos including one from a party with Hans, Meedia, Anna, Kikuyo, the other Erik and his girlfriend. He told me one of his greatest impressions was when he went out to Hans´ parents´ place on an island outside Gothenburg. I can understand that. I thought it was great when I went there too. Among the other people who made exhibitions were Dai, who went to Norway, and Julie, who went to Sweden together with Macchi. Julie´s father is german so she wrote a lot about german customs as well as about Sweden. The leader of the group was apparently Hiroshi (I wonder if I got that right), the guy who spoke english really fluently at english classes last year. He had written about when he went to Canada. There was also a crossword puzzle which was pretty challenging, mainly because of two spelling errors. I turned it in after while and got a prize (I thought it was just for fun, or for japanese people) consisting of a really nice calendar and a 1500 yen check for use at book stores. When I bumped into Hiroshi later he first looked stunned, then he changed facial expression and figured out that it was me who solved the crossword puzzle. Apparently he was the one who put it together. After visiting some other classrooms with displays of different kinds (including another exhibition about Sweden, complete with a Nobel Prize-poster, old maps of Stockholm and children´s books) I went back down to the tents. After chatting a while over a couple of beers at the IFA tent Escargot, the guest band from Kyushu, entered the stage. Do you know who they are? No? Well neither does most Tokai students, it seems. They played a song or two but the space in front of the scene was completely deserted. I felt really sorry for them. What a contrast to last year´s guest performers - Dengeki Network (aka Tokyo Shockboys). At that time it was really crowded around the stage. But then they are famous all over Japan (and all over the world according to some japanese people). Since nobody listened to them they got off the stage after a while. Later, after some more popular local bands had gotten people to get in front of the stage (sitting on benches...) Escargot got up again and played. After them came an amusing local rap group who shaved parts of eachothers heads and jumped around in their underwear. During all this I chatted away at the IFA tent, which ws just in front of the stage. I met this term´s swedish students again but they went to Nakajima Park for a look after a short while. I also met Cogen-sensei, the american teacher in the english class i participated in last year, and he promised to contact me later about going out (with the present english class like last year I assume, if they haven´t already done that). I also met Tetsuya (or what was his name again?) from the english class and he treated me to a cocktail from his bag. At seven o´clock I had to head home not to miss dinner but I had had such fun I told myself I just had to go on Sunday too.

But before I could go to the festival I had to go bowling. I had signed up for a bowling tournament with people from the dormitory and it seemed fun. It was quite fun too. At one o´clock everyone got in a small bus which drove us a couple of blocks to the bowling alley. Why didn´t we just walk there? Anyway, after having some problems guessing my japanese shoe size and finally starting to bowl, I was as skilled as ever, getting a tripple strike in the first round. Let´s not mention all the throws where I didn´t hit one single pin... I got 118 points first round and something lower next round, putting me at 9th place. It is so frustrating that I can get a tripple strike without knowing how. I mean, if I knew how I did it I could repeat it a couple of times... Although my team was not a contender when it came to points, my teammates sure had the funniest bowling styles. How about the between-the-legs-throw or the slowly-but-steady-throw? Anyhow, after bowling we walked back in the lovely sunshine. I went and bought a couple of used manga books and some lunch before I got back to the dormitory. When I got back I felt a bit tired, and since I didn´t have the following Monday off, like the Tokai students, I couldn´t party all night with them anway, so I decided to stay at home working on the log and studying a bit.