Bake Sales, Sumo, and the Greatest Unknown Bar in Matsuyama City

After a few admittedly "rough" weeks I'm grateful to report some lighthearted and even happy news.

Most importantly,two weekends ago, our prefectural AJET association organized a booth at the International Festival in Matsuyama city. Our purpose at this festival was two-fold: first, we wanted to promote a positive JET presence within the community; second, we wanted to host a bake sale to fundraise for several ongoing community projects supported by volunteer ALTs. Our target goal was a modest one - to raise 2 man yen (less than $200 USD) for future orphanage/retirement home/disabled persons visits. Thanks to the hard work of many good friends - ALTs, CIRs, and eikaiwa students too - we ended up raising 3 man and some change! At only 50 or 100 yen per cookie/muffin/etc that amount represents a lot of hard work on the part of my volunteers. When I initially began putting this thing together I wasn't sure what, exactly, we were getting ourselves into. I'd never even been to this festival before and was uncertain about what kind of foot traffic we could expect. Things seemed grim at first because, unfortunately, the event fell on a holiday week. So, most people had already planned small trips outside of the prefecture, drastically diminishing the number of our potential volunteers. Thankfully, enough kind-hearted people responded to my desperate pleas and we had an ample amount of homemade cookies, cakes, genuine Tex-Mex chili (thanks to J and K from Seto!), muffins, scones, carrot cakes, candy, corn bread, cd's (courtesy of Ehime's favorite boy-band, The Watanabes), handmade paper dolls and chopstick rests. We were successful despite less than favorable circumstances on festival day: our booth was located waaaay in the corner and it rained...and rained...and rained all day (can you believe that K, H, P, A, and the two children did not object when I sent them into the rain with umbrellas to sell baskets of sweets to people on the street - what dedication!). All in all, a memorable day. I swear, we've got the greatest bunch of ALT's this year. I was particularly moved by one ALT who stopped by the AJET booth and dropped 2000 yen into our jar to support our efforts!

The rest of the weekend is kind of a blur. I only slept for three hours Friday night because I stayed up late baking and then couldn't come down from my adrenaline rush. Saturday afternoon was the first time I ever attempted to drive in Matsuyama. K is my witness - I did rather well (surprisingly). Of course, we had the ghetto blaster going at full gear and a large assortment of dance music courtesy of M from Honai (I love your cd's, sweetie!). K and I had an absolutely awesome time together in Matsuyama!!! After enjoying a wonderful dinner together and trolling around Okaido for a while (slightly more tipsy than we realized) we found the BEST bar ever. Like most good things in life, we stumbled upon it quite accidentally. It was late, we were exhausted from a long day and frustrated that most places we wanted to go to were closed for private parties. Around 12 am we decided that we'd go into the very next place we found - NO MATTER WHAT (I know, famous last words). This quest led us past three hostess bars, up two flights of stairs in a rather seemy stairwell, and into the most unnerving lounge I've ever been in (in Japan, that is). The room was dark and smoky, there was really strange early eighties J Pop on the television (I'm talking about dramatic Amadeus-like costumes and wild purple eye make-up and long blood-red fingernails, etc). At the end of a long bar sat one lone customer of who, by appearance and behavior seemed to be of questionable character (I know, I know, prostitutes technically don't exist in Japan, right?) and kept a haunted gaze steadfastly fixed onto her drink. Lets just say the two bartenders seemed just as startled to see us as we were to see them. This was poignantly illustrated when we ordered hot sake and instead received hot ume-shu (plum wine) - yuck! For those of you who don't know, plum wine should never, ever be consumed hot. Its rather like drinking warm cough syrup. After chatting with the Shoumi, the bartender, for a while, K and I decided we were impressed with how much fun he was and how relaxed he seemed despite our limited knowledge of Japanese. We instantly made plans to return the following weekend.

After a few hours at Bar M (if I revealed the name, it wouldn't be the best-kept secret in Matsuyama, now would it?) we returned to the hotel with a little less than four hours to sleep before we had to depart for the Int'l Fest. An intense schedule, to say the least.

The following Wednesday K, Amake, Ms. Murami and I drove 45 minutes away to Nomura Town to watch Otoi Zumo. This is not just any sumo, but an important annual tradition and the only tournament nation-wide in which professional sumo wrestlers (of the lower ranks) wrestle amateurs. A substantial part of the day focused on children's sumo, followed by an exhibition tournament. As a die-hard sumo fan, I have to say I enjoyed this event a lot!