A week ago I was not only at the Game Convention in Osaka but also on Saturday at the University festival. Something like this is always a big thing in Japan.
It lasts 2 days (Saturday and Sunday) and is for the most part organised by the students and student clubs themselves respectively, for this reason starting from Friday noon before all courses are cancelled.
The festivity itself elapses as follows:
On each day from 9 o'clock a.m. to 5 o'clock p.m. countless stands are open on the main campus (as mentioned, operated by students) which offer all sorts of good stuff for eating and drinking, or different games (i.e. archery). It's a huge commotion (I was surprised myself about the scale) Of course it's another opportunity to let go of the bonds of uniformity, to dress crazy and act accordingly.
These are guys:
In addition bands play at different locations and lots of small shows are on on several stages. At 5 o'clock the stands close and on the main stage a good show is featured for 1-2 hours (here's an example):
Please note that no music or instruments were employed but both groups only used their voices.
After that the main part is finished, but one still has the chance to watch mini shows at other faculties or to go one of the bars established on campus (Legal drinking age in Japan: 20 years, and it's strictly checked at the university). The alcohol itself is partly good partly hooch and it's not mixed very strong respectively (but at 60 Euro-Cent for a Whisky-Coke or a Wodka-Lemon it's NO matter at all).
Since most students are working, the major part of the visitors is comprised of non-students (or non-university member), which is a good public relations work for the university.
Personally I think it's a great pity that we don't have something like this. Although on the other hand you probably could hardly enthuse our students to work voluntarily and without gratification for a University-festive (at least not the number of students you need). Students in Graz may interject that there is the Usi festival. But let's be frank: You cannot truly compare that great festival here with that stupidious Binching-event at home!
Last weekend:
A friend (David from Ireland) and I decided to finally hike up to the highest elevation of the Rokko-ridge, which we realised on Sunday. In short: It was gorgeous ...
The highest peak (Rokko itself) of the ridge is in fact only 931m high, but since the ascent is relatively shallow, it's a rather long way from the station (ca. 4-5 hours). Since we unfortunately started out very late (David overslept) and it was already after 15:00 o'clock when we reached the top (Sunset: 16:35 o'clock), we couldn't take a hiking road down, but trekked westward on the road along the "peaks", until, through a twisting road, we arrived at the train station. Altogether we nearly marched 9 hours continously! (a little exaggeratedly for the first time)
Specified procedure of the whole thing: At 10:30 o'clock move-out to the train station, 6 stops, and at 11:00 o'clock beginning of the ascent. At around 4 on the top, afterwards westward, at 20:00 o'clock at the train station of the University, then the (now only 3) stops back, and at 21:00 o'clock we were finally at home. All in all it was probably between 40-50km (I don't know exactly because of the heavy twisting road we took the last 2 hours)
It was really exhausting but way worth it.
If time permits I'm gonna frequently hike up the (smaller) mountains, and Fuji-san (wrongly called Fujijama at home) is also still expecting me.
This time more pictures than usually
A king wonders about his realm ...
Mmm, dinner!
Finally at the peak
Onwards to the west
More pictures and videos are, as always, in the album
Interesting (and funny) facts/opinions about Japan:
By now, everyone should know that the Japanese hold sports (physical training) and community in high regard, nonetheless the manifestations sometimes can scare a little bit.
When, for example, the school girls run by the student's home on the footpath, one sometimes asks himself if that are school girls training there or the local military unit. Not only do they oftentimes run nicely in groups (even in formation), no, like in the military the first in the group cries out a sort of warcry or sings something, which they others repeat in chorus.
Unfortunately for the time being there's not picture of video available but should I get hold on one I will put it on the blog.
On the topic of continuity: In the future there will be a new entry every Wednesday, with occasional extra issues on weekends.
