Yamaguchi Prefecture: Camellia Forest

After exploring the caves in Akiyoshidai, the gang and I grabbed lunch at a cute cafe. To our surprise, when we picked up a newspaper to pass the time while eating, we found out that there was a camellia festival going on nearby that day! We couldn't resist a side trip.

Unfortunately for us, it was still too cold for most of the blossoms to have bloomed, but I was enchanted by the bare trees' twisting branches and dappled sunlight on the ground.

Fukuoka ONTAQ 2016

Living in rural Japan is great. Untouched nature, monkey sightings, friendly townsfolk and fresh vegetables at the vegetable stand, we've got it all.

However, I don't think it would be wrong to say that sometimes I feel a little uninspired by the lack of a creative community here.

So when Alex told me about a music festival in Fukuoka this weekend, I was so down. I'm always ready to jump on an opportunity to see people making art. It's inspiring!

The festival, ONTAQ 2016, was a two day extravaganza that had bands playing all over Tenjin. I'm not a music festival expert, but I was informed that the style was a little bit like South by Southwest, with different acts concurrently playing at different venues.

Leading up to the actual date, Alex had been researching the bands and sending me recommendations. I think when I listened to most of the bands on Youtube, I didn't get a clear sense of what their shows would be like, but seeing them live was a totally different experience.

Every show was so fun and the musicians were so passionate, and just so excited to be doing what they were doing. I even got to talk to a few of the bands after their shows! Ugh, they were all so cool.

 I ended up seeing about eleven bands each do thirty minute sets, everything from an incredible singer-songwriter (日食なつこ）, to a couple of super fun pop punk/garage rock bands (EVERLONG, セプテンバーミー), and then some stuff that honestly I can't even describe (0.8秒と衝撃). Running around the city, watching people get really into the music, dreaming about being a cool front lady for a Japanese punk band-- I couldn't have asked for a better weekend.

If you're interested, here are links to the other bands I was able to see. They were all amazing!

The Forever Young

PORFIDIO

MELLOWSHIP

ポルカドットステイングレイ

RADIOTS

Revision of Sence

Bermuda Sankaku

a crow is white

If you want to check out all the artists who played at ONTAQ, here's the artist roster. If you'll be living in Japan around March next year, I definitely recommend this festival. It was about 3000円　per day, and totally worth it.

Now excuse me while I sing garbled Japanese into my hairbrush.

Deja Vu at the Ruins of St. Paul's

Are you a long time reader of Lauren Loves Noodles? Then it's time to test your memory.

Look closely at the picture above. Notice anything familiar?

That is a snow sculpture from my trip to the Sapporo Snow Festival that is being colored with projection mapping. Every night of the festival, all the large sculptures were projected upon with lights and music. It was a neat counterpoint to the snowy white scenery you could see throughout the day.

Pretty neat right? This sculpture was, by far, my favorite of the entire festival. Something about it just kept me doing d

Here are some other outrageous colors.

Beautiful right? The whole time I was watching it, I kept thinking to myself, "this giant snow castle looks oddly familiar..."

Then suddenly, it clicked. I had seen that structure before.

The real life version of my favorite snow sculpture

Here's a close up:

The Ruins of St. Paul's College

If you've been following me since my Hong Kong study abroad experience, you might remember my trip to Macau in February of 2013. It was there that I visited The Ruins of St. Paul's College for the first time and took these photos.

In Sapporo, I was treated to a neon bright snow sculpture version. What a blast from the past!

The St. Paul Snow Sculpture was apparently sponsored by the Macau Tourism Board, to try and get more people to visit Macau. And people should! I thought Macao was a vibrant place, filled with unique Portuguese buildings, Chinese-influenced culture, and crazy casinos (if you're into that sort of thing). There's really nowhere like it in the whole world.

It felt so strange to have this massive structure appear in my life twice, once the real thing, and once, an equally impressive snow sculpture version.

So if you recognized it right away, give yourself a pat on the back.

Let's celebrate three years of noodles!

Sapporo Snow Festival

When I first started considering the idea of moving to Japan for the JET Program, I remember my mentor and former supervisor saying that the Sapporo Snow Festival was one of the best events she attended during her two year stay in Kyoto. She told me tales of snow flakes falling, huge snow mazes, warm crab soup, and lanterns lighting up the streets. 

Needless to say, I wanted to go. I wanted to eat soup and play in snow. It was my dream.

What I didn't count on was the cost. With flights and hotel expenses, the Sapporo Snow Festival looked to be a bit out of my price range. Just a reminder, I live in the very south of Japan, almost as south as you can go before hitting Okinawa. Sapporo is on the northernmost island. It's a ways away.

Last year, I passed the snow festival up, saying I'd go next year. This year, I once again, almost passed, saying "I need to save money! I'm moving in August! I can't waste my cash on frivolous things!"

Then, I did a Google Image Search and changed my mind again. When would I get another chance to see something like this?

The Snow Festival (Yuki Matsuri in Japanese) was a giant winter wonderland. There were ice sculptures, huge snow stages (with cheerleaders and raffles as pictured above), competitive snowboarding events, snow sculpting teams from all over the world, and a snow play dome for the kids. 

Strolling around getting snowflakes in my eyelashes, I felt like a kid too.

Busan's Yeongdo Lighthouse / Taejongdae Park

Looking back on my photos from South Korea, I think this Busan trip was one of my favorite adventures to date.

Spicy food was around every corner, chic cafes as far as the eye could see, and tons of art. I'm a sucker for cafes, food and art. I couldn't handle my excitement.

So when we saw the sculptures in Taejongdae Park, I was totally over the moon. Yeongdo Lighthouse in Taejongdae Park might just sound like a great place to check out the ocean view, but it was a lot more special than that for me.

The walk from the base of the park to the lighthouse was beautiful, with huge cliffs standing up out of the ocean. There were tons of huge brightly colored sculptures all around us, which were really fun to get a good look at. Walking over the red rocks with the waves spraying us felt sort of special and romantic, like The Little Mermaid (South Korean Tourist Director's Cut Edition).

I wish I could describe the feeling of being there, but I think it's just a place you have to experience. Basically, I loved it and I want to go back. Golden Week is coming up...

Busan's Culture Village Gamcheon

In the spirit of Valentine's Day coming up, I thought I'd dig up some long overdue photos from South Korea, the most romantic place on Earth.

Back in August, Alex and I took a ferry over to Busan in South Korea. I had been looking forward to visiting Korea for ages, yet nothing could have prepared me for how special Busan actually was. The food was amazing, the people were so kind (and fashionable to boot), and there was tons to see and do!

I think one of my favorite sites we made our way to was the Gamcheon Culture Village. Alex had described it as a "lego town," colorful and mismatched, like patchwork. To me, it felt like a giant artist's playground, with a mural on every wall and kooky sculptures behind every corner.

The Petit Prince and his little fox friend looking out over the village are a famous photo stop.

Amazing, isn't it? Now, if you're hungry after all that art, here's a tasty morsel you can buy from street vendors standing around.



This is a Korean stuffed pancake, written in roman letters as hotteok. It was possibly one of the most delicious things I had ever eaten, stuffed with seeds and honey and brown sugar. We liked it so much that when we returned to Japan, we found a shop that sells hotteok there and had one for a breakfast treat one day. おいしい！

Lessons from Calligraphy and Ira Glass

Happy belated New Year everyone! 

I made this neat banner in calligraphy class in January and I am actually quite proud of it. The large characters say "New Year" and the small ones on the side say my name, which is "Ro-ren," in Japanese.

Usually, my calligraphy is pretty sub-par. I was never particularly interested in calligraphy, in fact, I only went to the class in the first place because my students kept haranguing me about it ("Please come to calligraphy class Lauren Sensei! Here is a map to where the class will be held, along with the dates and times that we will be there. Come, come!"). 

But the teacher, Yamakura Sensei, won me over. She's super funny, and a great mentor who is always genuinely concerned about her students' lives. 

Also, did I mention she's a badass who teaches martial arts when she's not teaching calligraphy?

Yamakura Sensei holding a katana

This week, when I attended calligraphy class, Yamakura Sensei told me that she could see my brush work was improving. I kept pointing out my own mistakes as I made them, and she would laugh.

After I made the piece pictured above, she told me, "Your heart and my heart are the same when we do calligraphy. Maybe you make mistakes, but you can now see your mistakes. So you can fix them and do better!"

Her words strangely reminded me of something Ira Glass said about taste in art/creative work. How when you first start something, you have this sense of how things should be, or "your taste is killer." But when you try to actually create that thing, there's a frustrating gap between what you're making and that sense of the perfect thing. Put more simply, you know what you want this thing to be, but you don't quite have the skill required to make it like that. 

I feel like my calligraphy skill level has finally gotten to the point where I have some sort of taste. I know what things are supposed to look like. But it'll be awhile before my skill level matches up to that, so I guess, for now, I'll just keep plodding along, doing my best.

But I suppose that's all we can ever do, in calligraphy and in life.

Kadogawa Post-Typhoon

After being cooped up during another typhoon on Monday, I decided to go have a little me date at the beach across the street from my apartment. I packed up my camera and sketchbook and rode my bike over.

When I arrived, I was shocked at the size and shapes of the clouds against the clear sky. Nothing like some post typhoon views to put you in a creative mood.

Here's my black and white interpretation of Kadogawa Town, post typhoon.

Trips like this always remind me how good it feels to do something unexpected after work, instead of the usual hum drum.

Variety is the spice, am I right?