Island Life

So it's been a few weeks now since I've been off the island. Last weekend was a festival in Ama, at the Oki Shrine a few blocks from my house. I didn't actually make it to the main part of the festival on Sunday afternoon, but I did attend a takigi-noh play on Saturday night. Nohis a very traditional Japanese performing art, using intricate masks that dates back to the 14th century Muromachi period. The kanji for takigi indicate that the play is performed outdoors, by firelight, which really added to the atmosphere of the play. The experience was far more enticing than something you'd see on stage. I couldn't really understand what was going on in this play, but I think it had something to do with Go-Toba, who, as I've mentioned before, is enshrined at the Oki-jinja. Despite the language barrier, I still had a fun time watching the performers, especially in the second act, which used very traditional Japanese drums and flute to accompany several dances on the stage. Plus, despite thunder in the distance, the weather held out, and the cold didn't set in too bad.

Other than that, life's been rather slow. We had a four day weekend last week, and this week 1/3 of my school is off doing outdoor education. Meanwhile my JTE has had to attend conferences in Matsue, as well as classes at the high school, so I haven't really taught at all this week, outside of my elementary schools. I've used the downtime though to read up on my Japanese history and brush up on my language skills.


Oh, and I shot this video of my house. Enjoy.