Colds, stoves, ringshaped lightbulbs, and videos!

So I'm recovering now from a fairly vicious cold. It was vicious because usually I don't really get sick, instead I just feel miserable in the "fighting off a cold" stage for a freakishly long time.

I mentioned the fact I had a cold to the leader of the English Conversation class for adults and he started sending me several emails asking me if I am okay, if need to go to the hospital, if I have been eating, if I was sick in bed, if I needed one of the female members of the class to come see me. It was really... umm... overwhelming.

It's not unusual in this country to go to the hospital just for a cold. By this, it doesn't mean being admitted to the hospital, but getting medicines from the doctor. Still, to my foreign ears "do you need to go to the hospital?" is still a bit shocking to hear.

My stove in my apartment has been broken for about two weeks or so now. I have a free used stove lined up for me which I have to pay the installation fee for, but I am still kind of waiting for something to happen there. No one has even come by to see if there's anything easy to fix on there. I couldn't be more unfamiliar with this kind of stove, so if I accidentally jiggled it in a way that made the gas pipe loose, I wouldn't know. It would be kind of embarrassing if some installation guy came and found something simple like that with my old stove. Of course, in my situation, it looks like if that's the problem, there's no way around finding out that way.

Today I went out and bought a new lightbulb for the lamp in my room. I suppose it's not appropriate to call it a lightbulb because technically it's a ring shaped lightbulb. At first when I saw these lamps that have them in my apartment, I didn't think to consider that they were very different from lamps I had in the US. On top of that, I noticed those light... rings in the store when buying a regular lightbulb before, but for some reason it didn't dawn on me that I would end up buying one. Nothing struck me as odd until the moment I realized I had to go buy a light...ring.

Holding the burned out one in my hand, I almost wanted to throw it like a frisbee because of it's shape and size. I took pictures of the lightbulb... ring... thing and I'll post them sometime.

There's a lightning storm going on outside. I don't really know what the "what not to do during lightning storm" rules are given where I am from, but I remember hearing YEARS ago that it is unsafe to be on the computer when there is lightning. I don't know if this is still true, but I do intend to get off of this computer if I hear it coming closer.

I don't have a terrible lot more to say right now anyway, either, I think.

I missed a big festival on Monday because of my cold.

Here are some videos I've taken--

Here's a broadcasting van. Source of lots of noise pollution in this country. I have no idea what this one is saying, but they do everything from advertise to telling citizens to clear the path (emergency vehicles.) There are A LOT of vehicles that have much to say around here.


This next video is a procession of performers going from one part of the festival I mentioned in the last blog, to another part which is across the street from my house. I filmed this from my balcony (as I did the last video).


Yes, I did wander down to the festival eventually. Here are some more performers-


This is proof that you can be a Japanese major and take Japanese culture classes, but still find aspects of Japan's culture that you find, well, REALLY hard to comprehend and several shades of hilarious. Watching men stand in line to hit a bunch of sticks with another stick while screaming their heads off taught me this. A faaaar more informed person commented this video saying that this is called "Yakumaru Jigen Ryu".


Last video-
I never thought I'd see people performing taiko drumming dressed as samurai warriors. Now, I know I was truly a person limited in imagination. :D

Actually, to make matters worse, for some reason I think of the ninja turtles whenever I watch this video. I actually thought of that while I was filming too. I imagined the ninja turtles doing taiko. (haha) I dare you to tell me you didn't!