Youtube Channel

I have made a youtube channel to put up my videos since posting them here takes a lot of time and the quality is poor. I have put up more videos from the lantern festival and a video of my highlights from Yosakoi. I hope you enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/user/paigepoet

Baby Sea Turtles

I got the great opportunity to help with the hatching of baby loggerhead sea turtles. As you may or may not know, sea turtles come onto land to lay their eggs, which they bury in the sand. Months later the baby turtles dig their way to the surface and make their way into the ocean. Because they are an endangered species their nest was protected by a large cage after the eggs were laid to keep predators from eating the eggs. And since a lot can happen in the long walk the newly hatched turtles have from the nest to the water we helped them. In groups we took batches of turtles in a bucket down to the water. There we took the turtles out one by one facing them towards the beach and watch them turn around, they naturally reorient themselves to the sun, and then watch them swim away into the ocean. Though sea turtles often hatch at night these hatched during the early morning meaning I had to wake up before 5am on a Saturday, but it was definitely worth it!

Yosakoi

Every year the Yosakoi festival is held August 9-12 in Kochi city. Yosakoi started in 1954 to help rejuvenate one of the cities older shopping districts. since then it has become a massive event unique to Kochi city. During the festival approximately 18,000 dancers in different dance groups, usually representing a company or group, preform in different places throughout the city. Each dance group must use wooden clappers called naruko and must use at least part of the yosakoi song in their routine but the music style, costumes, and choreography are all up to the groups to decide allowing for a explosive amount of creativity. Though the majority of the groups choose to use more traditional styles many do some really fun things. One group I saw did an Alice in Wonderland themed dance where the majority of the group were the cards but Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the Cheshire Cat were also there. My favorite group did there dance to Pirates of the Caribbean music (with the yosakoi words) with a very well done Jack Sparrow leading the group. each group is lead by a truck that plays that groups music and often has MCs and musicians on it. Most groups incorporate children of all ages and some groups were all children. the elementary school groups were very adorable. at the end of the group there is often a flag bearer. the flags can be massive and require a lot of strength and skill to handle. It was definitely worth seeing.