Akashi Park

Hi hi! It's getting chilly here in Japan. So, after my last blog post, it's been crazy. I got sick twice and I was in need for bed rest. I was in bed for 2 whole days. It wasn't that I was so bad that I couldn't get up, it's just everyone told me to not move and don't go to work. If I go to work, I'll be pushing it and I probably would get worse. So, I thought I shouldn't fight it and it was the right thing for me to get better first so I can go back to work in full recovery. But I'm back in good health and ready to get back on track with things!

Before I go any further with this post, I actually had two events going on this day. However, I want to make them in separate posts, instead of making a big mess in one. I don't exactly know when I will post the other part to this day, but I will get to it.

So, I went out with my squad to Akashi Park. This is actually my second time going, but we went mainly to see my little sister and two of our students perform in a marching band parade. You may see that I often say "little sister" a lot. Just to let those who don't know, I only have a big brother. While living in Kobe, I pretty much call all my friends, "my family" even when I've only known them for a year.

The marching band parade consists of all different bands from different schools around Kobe. It wasn't a competition or anything, but there were a lot of amazing bands. Unfortunately, due to that other event, we couldn't stay the whole time.

 

My little sister is named Yui (the one holding the cymbals), she's a junior high school student and is in her last year. Two of the students that performed with her (saxophone and drums) are her friends and they've probably been my students for almost 5 months now. I also treat them as if they were my little sisters too. I really cherish my students, so being able to see them outside of the class atmosphere and seeing what they love to do, it makes me so proud. I'm a huge fan of Detective Conan, so them being the opening of the start of the parade with that Detective Conan theme song was amazing~~~

I thought this little information here was something interesting that not many schools do. In Japan, it's pretty hard for elementary and junior high school students. However, I think it's like that in all of Asia. Even elementary and junior high school students have to take a club after school. And I mean, most of these clubs last until 7pm. 7PM!!! Poor kids. I had it a lot easier while going to school in the states. In the states, we chose whether we wanted to join a club or not. That was our decision. Usually most clubs either don't last that long or it's not everyday. As for Yui's club, she's in orchestra and they are required to go to club everyday...yes, everyday, that includes Saturdays and Sundays. Which is really sad because she's so tired everyday and as much as we want to hang out with her or talk to her, she's just doesn't always seem to have that energy. Thankfully, next month in November, her club will finally end! Though in high school she will have to enter another (and hopefully a different) club, at least she'll finally have a long break from that 3-year orchestra club and we can get that quality time we all wanted with her. \(^.^)/

Akashi Park isn't exactly a very, very famous place; however, it's where Akashi Castle is located. It's a very nice park. There are areas where it's traditional Japan. Can't compare to Kyoto, but it's still a peaceful place you would want to be. I'm not sure if it's everyday or every week, where they always hold an event inside the park. This day they didn't have a lot of food stands since it was more of the stadium area where they held this event, but usually the park would be jam-packed with many kinds of Japanese food stands. This event was not only for the marching band parade, but even for a chrysanthemum exhibition.

On our way to the other event, we stopped by a little store called Akashi Takosen. Takosen is short for "tako senbei" which means "octopus rice crackers". Here they also sold tako banana castella (octopus banana castella) which we bought for a snack. They're yummy! No, it literally doesn't have the taste of octopus in it, it's called tako banana castella, because the shape of the castella is of an octopus, but the flavor is banana. It's popular here. Akashi is famous for their takoyaki. And I must say, they have amazing takoyaki! If you don't know what takoyaki is, they're like these balls that are made with wheat flour batter and inside consists of pieces of green onion, tempura scraps, octopus, etc. There are all kinds of versions. I'm not exactly a fan of octopus, but I can always consider eating Akashi's. All my friends here are mostly kansai, but I still can't get used to kansai food. It's not that it tastes bad (I can tolerate it), but it's something I wouldn't want to eat all the time. I guess I'm an Aomori-Okinawa kind of girl, but who knows! Maybe I can become a Kobe girl someday! Give me another year or so lol.