Fun at the fesitival

Looking through some blogs this morning, it seems that this past weekend was a favourite for festivals here in Japan.And we had the annual town festival on Saturday.And it was HOT but a lot of fun even if I did overdo it and practically have to crawl home.

Before we went,Kenichi doing his new job.I was next in line.


Kenichi took part in the street dancing so Annie and I dropped him off at the meeting point and went to our friend's house.There,along with her kids and another friend and her kids,the girls were dressed up in their yukatas,had their hair put up and a lick of make-up on.I just sat and watched as I am hopeless at all this.But maybe next year I can try myself.Yeah right!

The girls all dressed up with the token boy enjoying his harem.


Once the girls were ready,it was time for the dancers to come past the house so we went outside and waited.The kids were really excited and loads of people we knew were taking part and passed by.It was really nice and everyone was in a jolly old mood helped ,no doubt,by the copious amounts of beer they were consuming.I remember taking part as well years ago...it was a lot of fun but the route was much longer back then and with all the beer supping,loo stops were needed and I got to see inside so many peoples' houses.Ah,the memories.

The children waiting for the dancers to pass.


After the procession had gone past,we walked along to the festival area.And it was quite a walk but parking is always a bugger so we though the exercise would do us good.Eventually we arrived and there were hordes of people.They had a action hero show later on so Annie went to watch with her friends and some lovely mums who looked after her while I walked around with Kenichi picking up some nice unhealthy food for our evening meal.We had spare ribs,really greasy chips,fried chicken,yakitori(skewered meat),yakisoba noodles and relatively healthy grilled onigiri rice balls.Marvellous and my gynecologist would have just flipped out:).After the Whatever Rangers show,Annie wanted her photo taken with the super heroes so we queued up for ages just to have her freak out just as we got to the top of the line.Then we watched some local taiko drummers and then a very cool performance by some more drummers and dancers from Okinawa.And all the time we were seeing friends,ex-students(half of who I pretended torecognise but actually had no idea who they were),present students,relatives,neighbours,colleagues etc etc.Very very busy are these local festivals.

Super heroes or not,no way was Annie going to pose.


Kenichi then did something really stupid and showed Annie the stall where you could win goldfish .I really didn't want any more(we have 2 now but my friend had warned me that the little fish her kids got at the festival a few years ago has grown and grown and now it is seriously as big as a very big persons hand,and I saw the monster fishie earlier in the day when the girls were having their hair done and thought it was a Siamese fighting fish or something).You pay for a little scoop that is made of thin paper and you try to scoop up goldfish before the paper just dissolves or rips.I could foresee this ending in tears and tried to warn Annie that it was really difficult and that if she didn't manage to get a bitty fish,she could have a glow in the dark bracelet(that I had my eye on ).Well,do I need to go on.She bloody well scooped up 2 fish at once and we now have these tiny little things at home.And they eat more than our other fish .So Mobey Fish here we come.Ewww.





Clutching her fish and having a good laugh at my expense.


The climax of the day was a big old firework display and we had been invited to watch from a friends boat in the bay overlooking the festival grounds.But I was just exhausted by that time so we made our way back to the car(so so far) and then drove down to the beach near our house and sat and watched there and ate our feast.It was lovely and the breeze was so cooling.We got back home late and then spent a good few minutes trying to catch Annie who really didn't want to take her yukata off.Then it was shower and bed.And dreams of giant goldfish eating chips.