A Snapshot: Bear Hell

After I made sure I was fairly drugged up on cold medicine, I left the hostel in search of a historic open air museum that Takayama is famous for... but I got sidetracked. I'm still not completely sure if it was fate or not, but as I ascended a hill in the direction of the museum, a sign caught my eye:

A teddy bear / eco consciousness museum. Not entirely sure how those two vastly different categories could be possibly combined in a museum setting, I decided to pay the five hundred or so yen to give it a quick look-through. And so began the weirdest half hour of my life. Once inside, I turned the corner and...

OH GOD BEARS. Everywhere I looked, there were little sets of beady eyes staring back at me. There was even a bear wedding scene, as can be seen in the photo below. "Now wait Ben," you might say. "These bears are sort of cute." That's what I thought at first too, and the first bit of the museum was fairly interesting, to be honest.

There were displays of teddy bears throughout the decades, with some from the early 1900s that I was particularly fond of.

It was here that the eco bit was tied in, with a small section of the museum dedicated to Smokey the Bear.

But then I reached the baker bears display:

These photos don't really catch the essence of the scene playing before me, so I took a video. Slowly rolling that dough...

I would like to point out that I was completely alone in this museum, which made it even more eerie. A also encountered some very relaxed polar bears:

Michael Jackson Bear:

French Pinup Girl Bear:

As well as a huge patchwork bear that filled the entire room:

The last few displays were sort of cute...:

... but the damage had already been done, and I left the museum quite bewildered, unsure of what I had just witnessed.

 

Sick

I woke up this morning feeling like I had been hit by a truck. Sore throat: check. Sinuses out of whack: check. I guess I was long overdue for coming down with something... perhaps it was the hot baths at training camp that did me in. In any case, I have no intention of wasting my days in Takayama bedridden. The "medicine" I have at my disposal:

This rather bitter-tasting powder is supposed to be mixed with hot water, though I suppose any liquid is fine if you're feeling adventurous. Japanese medicine is fairly weak, so the fact that I have to take this three times a day after every meal doesn't surprise me in the least. It seems to be doing a better job than these throat lozenges I purchased:

They're practically fruit flavored candy (sugar-free, and 44% less calories!) with 0% effectiveness. Truth be told, I think they're making my throat worse. With several packs of tissues at my disposal though, I'm confident that I will survive today's adventure, more or less.

 

Takayama Arrival

After a bit of strategic train hopping, I've finally reached Takayama! I reached the hostel just in time to check in before the front desk closed for the night. The nearby visitors map had an empty space in western New York, so I immediately picked a blue pushpin and announced my presence to the world.

The dorm room I'm to stay in for the next few nights is pretty nice, with a shared bathroom for four travelers. I'll probably make up my sightseeing plans as I go along tomorrow morning because I have every intention of sleeping right now!

 

Majestic Matsumoto

Today marked the start of my cross-country trip, as I left Tokyo (again) and began making my way south. The trek to my accommodations in Takayama was a long one, so I decided to break up the monotony of riding trains and took a slight detour to the city of Matsumoto in Nagano prefecture.

Matsumoto is well known for its beautiful castle, which is one of the most complete of Japan's remaining original castles (the keep is an original structure, built in 1504). I only had three hours in the city before I had to catch a train for Takayama, so I put my luggage in a rental locker and left the station. Surrounding the castle, bordering the moat, is a small park that I decided to walk through:

As I emerged from the park foliage, a magnificent sight came into view. I've seen many castles in Japan, but in my opinion even the highly-praised Himeji Castle doesn't come close to this.

After spending a few minutes taking it all in, I finally made my way to the gate and paid admission to enter the castle grounds.

There was a box of free pamphlets with a place to put a stamp for every castle visited in Japan. As I have no intention of visiting every castle this time around, I decided to stamp a few pages of the notebook I happened to be carrying with me.

A small garden lined the path to the castle that loomed ahead, often referred to as "crow castle" due to its black exterior.

As Matsumoto Castle existed in a time of both archery and firearms, small openings lined the walls on every floor, allowing for the use of both types of weapons. Slots in the floor above entryways were for the purpose of dropping rocks and whatnot on unsuspecting invaders.

The second floor of the castle featured a gun museum, which had some pretty intense looking armor as well as devastating firearms. Pictured below (under the armor photo) is what appears to be a hand rocket of sorts.

To say that the stairs within the castle were steep would be an understatement. I had to use both hands and feet to climb the ladder-like steps, ducking under large wooden crossbeams.

I eventually reached the top, where a few other visitors were taking a well-deserved rest after the climb.

Windows situated on every wall provided a magnificent view of the city:

After spending half an hour relaxing on the castle's top floor, I made my descent and emerged from the entrance to find a man in samurai armor waiting for me. Although I'm not a fan of touristy photos, the costumed person proved to be particularly convincing with his sword...

After my unenthusiastic photo-op, I briefly stopped by the gift shop and found these beauties: chili KitKats. I didn't buy any, since I plan on visiting the KitKat chocolatier in Tokyo at the end of my trip, but I thought it was a cool find regardless.

On my way back to the station I stumbled across Yohashira Shrine, located right in the city center. While there wasn't anything necessarily remarkable about it, the stroll through the shrine grounds was enjoyable.

My train wasn't scheduled to depart for another half hour, so I treated myself to a bowl of ramen (this seems to be a common theme).

 
 

Three Weeks of Free* Travel

Well it's technically not free since I paid $586 for it before I left Buffalo, but this little guy is going to pay for itself within the next week or so!

 

LAMBS Training Camp (Day 2)

The view that I woke up to this morning:

It's amazing what a slight change in weather can do to transform the scenery. Due to the phenomenal weather this morning, some of us went outside to walk around:

After our stroll outside, we headed back inside and regrouped with the others. The focus for this morning's practice was parade marching, with the main goal of having the band make it around corners without losing form.

At some point during the marching and rhythm routines, my turn to perform with the other alumni in front of the club had arrived. There were only two alumni cuica players in attendance, Sakiko and I, but we produced more than enough sound to maintain a balance with the other instrument sections. For the past two years, I've attempted to explain to both family and friends what kind of instrument a cuica actually is, and what kind of music my club performed. The following video will hopefully answer some of those questions:

After practice, I headed down to the dining hall to eat my final meal. While the training camp was in its entirety five days long, many of the alumni, myself included, decided to stay for only the weekend due to work (or in my case, travel). After finishing up a bit of packing, I went to the lobby to wait for the bus back to the station. There I found many of my fellow club mates passed out on the couches, trying to catch up on sleep.

I stood at the bus stop, watching some of the dancers move gracefully with Mount Fuji in the background. I'm glad I was able to see my club mates again and reacquaint myself with samba rhythms, if only for two days.

LAMBS Training Camp (Day 1)

When I studied abroad in Tokyo for a year, there were plenty of extracurricular activities at my university in which I could have participated. From the school football and rugby teams to the photography and scuba diving clubs, I could have joined practically any of them during the fall recruitment period. Yet I found myself on a Wednesday evening in a sound proof music room, strange drum-like instrument in hand, playing samba rhythms. LAMBS (the Latin American Music and Batucada Society), a club dedicated to the passionate music and dance of Brazilian samba, took me under their wing for a year. Coming from those tiring weekday practices and exciting festival performances were some of my most precious memories of my entire study abroad experience. Two years later, I found myself reunited with my club mates for their annual summer training camp at the base of Mount Fuji, as they prepared for their upcoming Asakusa Samba Carnival performance.

Arriving at the hotel midday, at the near-end of morning practice, we were able to see the newly recruited freshmen perform for the rest of the club. As they had only just joined LAMBS several months prior, it was refreshing to see them play their instruments and dance in confidence in front of the upperclassmen.

The hotel that the LAMBS training camp is held at each year provides three Japanese-style meals a day, which is always welcome after the numerous practices throughout the day that leaves everyone absolutely exhausted. Today's lunch was oyako-don, a savory chicken and egg rice bowl (the kanji for oyako literally mean "parent and child," referring to the dish's main ingredients). It's definitely a favorite of mine, though I was never quite able to get the recipe right back in Buffalo.

Looking out from the dining room, I could see Lake Shoji in all of its glory. As it was rather overcast today, a particular majestic mountain was hidden from view... Perhaps tomorrow will offer something a bit more picturesque?

After lunch, I threw on a pair of gym shorts and a tee, ready to get right back into the samba I had left behind two years ago. The afternoon practice was dedicated to the enredo, our club's theme for this summer's performance. With vocalists at the ready, we began.

As we created lively, percussion-heavy rhythms, dancers began their routines in the center of our drum circle, proudly presenting our club's flag throughout. The room was bursting with energy as the practice went on, much of it coming from the enthusiastic alumni.

At one point, Tsubasa and Keita, both alumni dancers, began juggling assorted tambourines for fun while we took a quick break.

A large assortment of traditional Japanese food was served for dinner, with fresh sashimi and delicious beef as its highlight. Everyone seemed a bit tired, but eating was able to remedy that, preparing us for the final stretch of evening practice.

After dinner, each instrument section had a brief group meeting to go over both standard and newly learned rhythm patterns. Although I hadn't touched my cuica in years, I was able to reproduce nearly all of the patterns flawlessly, to my surprise. I was rather happy to see the number of people huddled over their cuicas in the small room. While I had been one of three cuica players during my time in LAMBS, the new recruits and alumni increased our numbers to a healthy seven, more than enough to make ourselves heard amidst the booming of the large surdo drums.

Upon rejoining the others and reviewing the new signs, our cuica group was able to hold its own throughout the practice, another step closer to a successful performance in Asakusa. Since it was the last practice of the evening, everyone was running a bit low on fuel, but we all managed to give one final burst of energy to end the night on a good note.

After taking a nice, long soak in the hotel's bath, I wandered downstairs to the rec room where all the alcohol and snacks were kept. While initially empty, the room quickly filled up and became very lively. My iPad was brought out and an impromptu Fruit Ninja tournament began. As exhaustion and beer-induced drowsiness slowly caught up with me, I finally made a sleepy trek back to my bedroom to re-energize for the following day.