I was informed yesterday that, after the prefectural orientation, I could take the rest of the week off. This is because it is currently Obon (お盆), the Japanese/Buddhist festival of ancestor honoring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obon).
I'll let those of you that want detailed information read the Wikipedia page, since that's where I'm getting most of my information anyhow, but here are the basics:
Obon is a festival to honor one's dead ancestors, wherein, over the course of a about a week or so, all of Japan travels to their various hometowns to clean up their family graves and make offerings. In addition to being an interesting syncretism between Buddhism and ancient Japanese animism (a syncretism that took place so long ago it is probably not recognized as such- much as in the case of Iranian dualism in Christianity), Obon also means that Japan basically shuts down for a week. This is saying something in a country where people like to work hard and aren't (by and large) terribly religious, so I will be watching with interest from the sidelines.
My office coworkers observed that I should probably just take the time to enjoy myself, since I probably couldn't make it to my ancestor's graves (they were joking, of course, which is probably good- I don't even know where said graves are located), and I agreed. The next couple days will be occupied with exploring the Murakami area, reading Ryu Murakami (no relation to the municipality or the other writer), and just generally hanging out. I will be receiving my gaijin card today, so I ought to be able to purchase internet for my apartment soonish. Until that time, however, or unless I make it up to Murakami-shi (the McDonald's there has WiFi...love this country), I won't be updating the blog nor will I be on the interwebs for about five days. With any luck I'll have gotten some pics of the Obon proceedings in that time, or failing that, some new pics in general. Until then, sayonara!
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