So yesterday i decided to take a little stroll around the Mibu temple to see if i could get a glimpse of the Kyogen performances they were supposed to have there. I got word of it mostly from the little whiteboard JHoppers has that has upcoming events. So i walk about 30 mins and get to the temple area and see a sign in Japanese. Thinking "oh, this must be it" i went turned in to see a little table and people paying for entrace. So i paid 1000 yen (the bulletin board said 800...i figured maybe the price went up?) and went in...hmm. So theres this tour guide talking away in japanese in a room with about 20 people and i dont have a clue what hes saying, we take a stroll around this small building (i think it was a house) and exit. What?!??! THAT was 1000 yen?!?! yup. My disappointment was somewhat quelled by the matcha and mochi they served in a tea room connected to a souvenir shop.
So I look at the kanji character of the place i went to, and indeed it said Mibu something or other....all i know is that it had the right name, but wrong type of place. So i went a little further down (maybe 50m) and sure enough, the real temple entrace was there. I took a stroll around and it was pretty nice, having a few features that were unique to it like this mound (sorry, dont know the correct term for it) made outta concrete with a bzillion tiny buddhas in concentric circles around the mound...reminiscient of a temple is SE Asia. So theres this line emerging from part of the temple, getting longer and longer. At first i was just gonna say "screw it!" and save my yen. But i asked a guy about it and he said it started at 1 (it was about 11:40) with the doors opening at 12:30. 800 yen. I bit the bullet and lucky i did it at that time cuz the line was about twice the size by the time the doors opened.
So Kyogen used to be little tiny skits they did in between Noh acts as sort of an intermission. Theyre often commical and are apparently pretty popular. So it turns out that 5 skits were sceduled, for a total of 4.5 hours! The skits were all pretty cool with the added coolness being that in kyogen, they dont speak so im on somewhat even ground with the other japanese folk. Lotsa the Japanese folk left after 3-4 skits, but i stayed till the end (determined to make the most outta my money) and in retrospect, this has been one of the better deals of my trip. Unfortunately, they didnt allow cameras during the performance, but the constumes were all cool and the masks they use are also really neat. They more or less have standardized masks for stereotypical rols...the daemon, the fool, the priest, the lord, samurai, etc..The masks only cover the first part of the face however the rest of the face is covered with white cloth so you never see any part of the actors real face/hair. They also interact a little with the audience, at one time flinging saucer cookies into the audience in one instance and sending streamers (representing spider webs) on another.
In the end, its tough to explain....every now and then these things come to our area (they had a performance in Wheeler last year by a famous Noh actor). Highly recommended!
Today was the 2nd day of the Otsu festival. Not sure what they did on the 1st day, but today they paraded tall, hand drawn floats around the streets of Otsu, playing music (flute, drums, gong thingy) and tossing "YakeYuke"(?) which are these things made out of dried rice stalks/leaves which are like good luck charms. The float guys get really into it (so much so i didnt realize they also had animatronics within the floats), cheering the crowds on while tossying the YakeYuke things out. At times it got pretty squishy as people lunged and toppled other people to get one of these things. I saw some people with like 5 (greedy bastids!). Overall, pretty cool and surprisingly un-commercial...there werent really any special vendors along the route.
Also went out last night with 2 brits that came in. Theyre actually brothers, the older one named James living in Australia (near Melbourne i think) the other, Mike, in South London somewhere. Anywho, cool chaps. Went out for some beer. Ran into a few folks from the Uno house, then we went down to this other place to watch the England vs Turkey soccer match. The game was tied 0-0. I cant seem to get into soccer...i think there were a total of 2 exciting moments during the game.
Posted by eric at October 12, 2003 03:28 AM