If the 1st, 2nd, 3rd Party Friday's hadn't already convinced me, Today definitely would have broken any notion of the idea that Japanese people live to work and do nothing but work.
Everyone one getting excited as the flutes and drums play right before we head out ( About 1pm)
After lazily waking up after a fun night celebrating a friends Birthday in the City I hoped the JR back to my place to shower and rush out the door to get wrapped up and ready for the Mando Matsuri. And when I say wrapped up, I mean literally wrapped up. So our garb for the day was shorts, sock like shoes, happi and about 20 yrds of cloth tightly wrapped around your waste. Despite what would seem like the quite restrained nature of it, it was quite comfy and easy to move about in.
So along with the drum cart the main item, as the name implies, is the lanterns. Each one made of bamboo, rice paper, paint and lights inside + Car Battery to power said lights. In all it comes in at a easily carried 150lbs lol. And this is carried by one person at a time. It was a nice chill pace though, stopping at most intersections and large crowd areas to do as in the video, spin and run around chanting. I mean it was an absolute blast. And, something I don't remember in Marching Band, were the 3 free beer/Ice cream carts following us the whole day.
At another intersection the drummers started to get wild. Now the cart is no lightweight either, that thing had to weigh about 500lb or more, solid wood on solid metal wheels. Tipping it and spinning it around was quite the feat.
The kids here are just too cute.
Our groups front man, always had us cheering, jumping and all in all kept the spirits high the whole day.
Finaly, night settled in and that car battery started to make more sense. They were sooo cool to see all lit up at night. Such a cool sight.
The final event of the night was like an endurance contest. Who would be the last one standing, Both the kids and the rest of us gave it our all in another dizzying run around the lanterns. You could definitely see there's a good weight to holder ratio on the kids lantern. He was spinning like crazy!
Probably one of the most adorable things I've seen, those little kids and their car lanterns. Sooo much energy, this was about 9pm at this point. So 8hrs out in the about 92* heat. Great way to end the night.
The next day I went back to purely watch and enjoy the show with some of the international students at the local college here. Kariya has a great Volunteer group that helps get the college students out and into the culture.
Sooo much good food!
After dinner the ladies all got dressed up in beautiful yukatas. And me in my normal button up, black pants meh attire lol.
Later I met up with my good friend Shii-chan and found some great food around the way and took an obligatory photo with one of the lanterns from today's parade. All in all a wonderful weekend, and I think in these two day's had more fun than I've had in a long time.
No comments:
Post a Comment