Friday was something that I'd been waiting for, ever since I first heard about it--IUC arranged for us to go to the 横浜市立大学学園祭 Yokohama City University's School Festival (浜大祭 for short).
The main reason that I was looking forward to this trip so much, is that we'd been told there would be the possibility of joining some of the student clubs/teams, and I was really looking to use that as a way of making Japanese friends. That is definitely been the only major complaint I have with IUC--there's no built-in way of meeting Japanese our age, which has meant that up to now, I haven't been able to really make any Japanese friends. The friends I have made are wonderful, and I love hanging out with them, but they're all gaijin like me, which can be frustrating--sometimes to the point that I start wondering if I'm really in Japan. But I digress.
Probably around 15 IUC-ers--we met up at Yokohama station bright and early in the morning (ugh) and all headed out to the HamaDai campus together. For starters, we were broken up into groups, and met with student volunteers who would give us a tour of the campus and the festival. Outside there was a stage with student performances (dance and music); lots of tents where various clubs/organizations were selling goods or food; stalls with different Japanese fair games... you get the idea. (For those readers familiar with the 'Croft, think Fall Festival, but bigger).
I found out later that most of the other tour groups didn't fare quite as well, and people mostly ended up leaving around 1 or 2pm--so the group I got placed in was clearly the best! :-D My group was me, Jason, and Misa; and our student guides were Ai, Naoko, and Jacky (he was actually an international student as well, from China). They were all really friendly, and we had a blast!
Ironically, walking around at the festival, the first group that we got accosted by happened to be the archery club, trying to get people over to their booth where you could try and shoot a target or balloons to win prizes. I mentioned that I had been on the archery team too, so they decided to let me use a "real" bow, instead of the cheap & light ones they had for everybody else. This was great, except for 1) the bow was right-handed (when I explained I was a lefty, the response was "頑張ってください Well, please try") and 2) it was *reeeeally* heavy. So I didn't acquit myself all that well, but I did manage to hit one balloon--and win a lollipop.
We ran into another IUC group--here's Hansell-sensei getting ready to try his luck...
Next we wandered inside and found out we were just in time for a screening in the film club's room. They were showing 3 short student films (about 15 mins each). The first one was a "looking back on your happy youthful days" sort of a piece, with 3 or 4 high school boys goofing around on the train platform, and then it cut to one of the boys in a suit on his way to work, and he sees the platform and remembers those days. The second film--in addition to being in Japanese--was one of those super-deep indie psychological things, so I really didn't understand it at all. The third film was my favorite--a sort of sweet love story. A girl runs into this guy who grants 3 wishes to someone--he explains that he can't go away until she's made all of her wishes, but she can't decide on the last one, and eventually as time goes on, she realizes she likes having him around. Finally the guy explains that she has until tomorrow to make her wish, or he'll disappear anyway, but she decides not to say what her last wish is, since either way he'll leave, but then at the very end he comes back, and when she asks why, he says "It's what you wished for." Aaawwww.......
After the movie, we were all pretty hungry so we went in search of food at the stalls outside. And there was a *lot* of food. Takoyaki, okonomiyaki, yakisoba, Chinese fried rice, tempura ice cream, cotton candy (which I actually got to try making! ;-D It's a lot harder than it looks)--and the list goes on. At any rate, it was yummy. Here's a view of one of the main food-stall streets.
The orchestra club also had a booth nearby, where they were playing chamber music pretty much all day. I guess they traded off...?
After lunch we went back inside the building cause Jacky had found this really neat room he wanted us all to see. It was the...Train Club...or something? I'm not really sure. At any rate, they had this neat train-driving simulation video game, and the controller was an actual set of train controls. You had to stop at the stations, and watch out for signals and all that stuff. Jason tried it, but I think I would have crashed or something. I'm not entirely certain that it was even *possible* in the game to crash, but I think I would have managed it. They also had a table with all these neat train parts, like those hanging handles in the cars, and different train signs. We posed!
From L-R is Jason, Misa, me, and Ai. Naoko was taking the pictures, so she's not in it--and Jacky got a phone call so he ended up not being in the picture either. He was a little sad when he came back that we had done it without him. ;-P LOL.
Then, it was time for Naoko's friend's band--The Daytrippers--to go on stage outside, so we all went back to go and see their show. They seriously thought they were rock stars for real. It was pretty fun--especially when the lead singer (Naoko's friend) fell off the stage in the middle of the first song (*not* on purpose). :-O But I did snatch a video of them (post-tumble). Note the very enthusiastic fans to stage left, LOL. I only wish I'd taken more video, but しょうがないから、とりあえずenjoy what I've posted here.
Lastly (but definitely not leastly) the final event on the main stage was something called "Mr. Lady," which is basically a beauty contest for guys dressed as girls. There were 4 contestants, and they went through a series of rounds to determine who made the best woman. As Ai explained to me, "At other universities, like Keio or Waseda or wherever, they all do beauty contests and stuff, to see who's the prettiest girl, or the coolest guy--but that's boring, everybody does that. At HamaDai, we've never done those kinds of contests. Instead, we have okama contests." ;-P
Here's contestant #1: "My hobbies are shopping...and laundry..."
The next video is contestant #4, who's the one that Ai thought was the obvious winner from the get-go. And it's true, he was completely adorable! ;-) I only wish I'd taken a video of #3 (the one in the dark sweater and skirt) as well, because he had a super deep voice, and just made the most AWFUL woman I've ever seen. It was hilarious.
After that, the festival was winding down, and Jason and I had promised to meet Molly and Paul for okonomiyaki dinner, so we had to leave the festival. But we'd already exchanged contact info with Naoko, Ai, and Jacky, and they promised to get some of their friends together and call us up for izakaya, or bowling, or clubbing in Roppongi sometime soon. (Earlier in the day, Naoko or Ai would say, "yeah, we'll all have to go out together. We'll go to a club" and Jacky would excitedly jump in with "Tonight? :-D " )
Wow, this became a really long post. Sorry. Hope you enjoyed my ramblings tho!
That's Hideaki Ito in the middle, with the kind of awful fake tan.
