eventful

Today a huge group of 外人 (gaijin, "foreigners" were supposed to camp out outside Suwa Shrine to get the free seats for Kunchi Festival tomorrow. Kunchi is apparently one of the three most famous cultural festivals in Japan; it is a yearly even that is televised nationally, and goes on from October 7 to 9. Different neighborhoods perform their special dance or show, and they carry these portable shrines out of Suwa and all over Nagasaki. That should be interesting.
We didnt end up camping out, though, because they changed the system this year: people had to go and get the free tickets beforehand instead of lining up for first-come, first-served seats. I found this out at 1pm, basically by accident. Tiedermann sensei ended up giving 8 of us (carefully handpicked to all be cool people) a ride to the densha line, where we caught a densha to Suwa and got our tickets. We were able to get a few extra for people who we couldnt find, even though they werent supposed to give them to us. I also bought a t-shirt. On the way out of the shrine we saw this enormous line of kindergarteners, who were all super cute. however, as we were descending the huge steps an older man, who was either german or british (i think) turns to an old japanese man he was standing with and says (in english) "what the hell are all these americans doing here? they bombed the hell out of this place!" i was totally floored by this. he wasnt even freaking japanese, and if he was in fact german, what the hell business has he criticising americans for things our country did in world war 2???? we werent even freaking born then!
Anyway, this made me very angry, but i kept going and told everyone else once we were far away from him. they were also mad. BUT the kindergarteners were really cute (we were still behind them at this point) -- they kept turning around and waving and laughing, and they were kind of shy. when we got to the bottom of the stairs they dispersed to their parents, and i saw one little boy telling his friend from the from of the line that "eigo no hito ga aru!!" (english people are here!). this was very cute. they were kind of shy but obviously interested in us.
Anyway, I missed Japanese class to get the tickets, but thats ok with me. we went to Mr donuts before the bus came, and then i went back for my japanese arts class. We got to put on kimono and learn a little about them. the teacher only spoke japanese. but i have lots of cool pictures from class today, with like 10 of us in kimono. i will post them soon. now it is time for me to go for a walk.