Hippies Abound

Most of you are probably aware that I went to Sado island this past weekend to see the Sado Island Earth Celebration. For the weeks leading up to this I couldn't stop buzzing about how excited I was to see a hippie-laden festival done Nihon-style. Well folks, I got exactly what I wanted -- plenty of tyedye, half-naked people brown people and patchouli.

I didn't go to Sado until Saturday, due to the fact that I wasn't able to make it to the last ferry out of Niigata City on Friday. So Friday night I went out with fellow Murakamians Joel and Eric to check out the mini Tanabata festival being held in town that night. The Tanabata is a Japanese star festival which celebrates the meeting of the lovers Orihime and Hikoboshi, two stars which during the rest of the year are separated by the river that is the Milky Way. Different people celebrate it based on different calendars, so August 19th was a smaller celebration. The giant celebration is July 7th, and is held all throughout Japan.

One of the 10 or so floats that was decorated by, and served to represent various areas of the city.

More floatage.

After walking down the street a ways we spotted Chris and Sean (two other Murakami JETs) in a garage chillin' and drinkin' with some Japanese locals, so we stopped to say hey. It was the perfect spot, because as all the different groups from each area of the city came by, they'd each stop to perform a dragon dance in front of our garage that looked insanely tiring. Ended the night playing darts at the darts bar and hitting the sack relatively early in preparation for Sado.

I woke up earlyish Saturday morning to travel to Niigata City so I could catch a ferry out to Sado island. The car ferry takes about 2.5 hours to travel the distance, and its a lovely ride. I'm mostly gonna let the pictures do the talking:

A small chunk of the lovely Sado. A large portion of the island is completely uninhabited and covered in trees -- i.e., hippie heaven.

Japan's cleaner, friendlier equivalent of Shakedown Street. I bought a number of excellent things, including the most beautiful tapestry ever and a tyedye dress. I was even more pleased, however, when the seller of said dress unwittingly put my new treasure in the most striking paradigm of postmodernism:

Damn that's deep...

Adorable nekkid hippie children were everywhere. I kept wanting to take pictures, although I didn't want to be that creepy gaijin. I found this cutie sleeping in the back of a shop though, and snapped when no one was looking.

The Shinto torii mark this place as sacred.

The steep, lovely climb to the stage.

Proof that I was, in fact, on Sado island decked out in paisley. That's the stage behind me. Sadly, no photos of the performance were allowed.

Saturday night's concert consisted mainly of two long sets. The first was Zakir Hussain and Dilshad Khan, both from India. Zakir is considered to be the best tabla drum player in the world, and after seeing his performance with Khan playing the sarangi, I second that opinion. Kodo, performers of the world's most physical drumming on the bass-laden Ō-daiko (great drum) and hosts of the Earth Celebration for the last 20 years, played the next set which was nothing short of amazing. As if they weren't already totally badass, the drummers and staff live and train on a 25-acre commune on Sado island and have put on the EC every year that they've been there. According to wikipedia, Kodo once once ran from the finish line of the Boston Marathon onto stage for a performance! I've heard they're also ninjas by night.

After the concert was over, back down the hill on the main road, some locals were playing drums, flutes and shamisen. Hundreds of people were milling about and dancing the Sado Okesa dance. The dancing lasted over two hours!

Locals playing the shamisen.

A small O-daiko.

Hundreds line the streets to do the Okesa dance.

A guy doing the Okesa dance in traditional yukata and hat.

I uploaded a video I took of a chick doing the Okesa dance for ya'll. Sorry it's not vertical -- I don't have Quicktime Pro and don't want to pay for it in order to rotate the video.



We (other JETs and myself) camped out on the beach that night. Despite the fact that I had sand in every nook and cranny of my body, I had fun being out on the beach beside a big bonfire. Also, I saw more stars that night than I've ever seen in my life and had a perfectly clear view of the Milky Way. Nearly every time I looked up I saw a shooting star without even trying. I think I made over 15 wishes.


Now, a few pictures of my favorite JETs, for good measure.

Richie, my favorite Irishman. Rich, your face really does look like the bandanna monster here.

Errol and I sharing a very meta moment.

Sunday I basically spent all day travelling back to Murakami since that involved a number of bus rides, ferry rides and train rides. The festival was really fun, and I definitely plan on returning next year, hopefully when my Japanese is better and I can converse with the earth people easier.

In other news, I think I've decided to skip out on the Metamorphose festival next weekend on the Izu peninsula. For those of you who haven't heard me constantly yap about it, its an all night electronic music festival just south of Tokyo that this year will feature one of my favorite groups, STS9. Just traveling there and back would cost OVER 200 dollars, and I've still gotta buy a ticket, a cool t-shirt/art, food, etc. (in that order). However, all is not lost! STS9 is playing a show in Tokyo Wednesday night, so I'm gonna ask my supervisor tomorrow if I could have Thursday off. If they say yes, I'll ride the shinkansen to Tokyo Wednesday after work and ride a bus back on Thursday. I'm a little concerned about asking off work this early in my JET career, although its not like I'm actually doing anything either. My days are filled with sitting at a desk, studying Japanese and surfing the internet. Gaaah my life is so hard ;-)