Day 6: Yabusame and Grandparents

Today -- meaning one week ago because I'm very behind -- we went and watched 流鏑馬＝やぶさめ＝horseback archery. It was super cool and looked absurdly difficult.
Breakfast beforehand:

When we got there, there was a tent where people were selling melons. I found out later that melons are kind of a big deal here. Some of the melons were really expensive:

My host mom got one of the slightly cheaper melons, and we had it for dessert one night. They were also selling delicious little melon flavored gelatin-cup-things and we got free samples. My host mom got some of those also:

The riders were dressed up in colorful attire, and a few let us take pictures with them:

Me shooting a tiny bow and arrow at a large target:

Other people shooting large bows and arrows at tiny targets
(while also on horseback and going very fast):

The riders had to shoot at three different targets as they passed them, which meant they had to draw new arrows between targets. This was the middle target, so it seemed like people chose not to shoot at this one the most. When they did shoot, they only hit the target about a third to a quarter of the time. Still ridiculously impressive, and the targets made a cool cracking sound as they broke in half when they were hit.

There were also two or three houses you could feed fat carrots to or ride for a little bit. Here is me and my host brother (the younger one) on a horse:

He kept saying 楽しい＝たのしい＝tanoshii＝fun to himself which was super cute.

(Note: In casual/informal-Japanese this can be a complete sentence and here translates to something in between "This is fun/pleasurable." and "Wheee!")

Also, I found a huge four leaf clover, but I put it in my purse and it must have fallen out so I have no photo evidence.

We left before the event was over and went to a small ramen restaurant for lunch:

It was really yummy. The restaurant was small (one room), and the seating area was traditional with tatami mat floors and cushions on the ground instead of chairs. You had to take off your shoes to go on the tatami mat area which was raised about 6 inches.

Later, we went to my host dad's parent's house for dinner. They were really sweet.

The fish was かれい（karei) which is "right eye flounder" in English. It was 焼き魚＝やきざかな(yakizakana)＝cooked fish. It was really difficult to eat because it still had all the bones (ほね) inside that you had to work around with your chopsticks, but it was pretty delicious. The things that look like onion rings are いかリング(ika-ringu)＝squid rings, and were basically giant calamari.