This time of year in Japan there are summer festival everywhere, every tiny town has its own festival. Our hometown festival was on August 1st and 2nd this year -- the 1st night had a traditional dancing parade and the 2nd night had fireworks. It's been a long time since I when to the festival here, so I was excited and had a great time, especially since this is Luke's first time to experience a Japanese festival -- of course he has no idea and won't remember much! but it's okay --hahaha I took some pictures and videos to show you what a Japanese summer festival looks like (^-^)
We were planning to go to the festival around 4:00 pm, and have dinner there. But then there was a rain shower and thunderstorms in the afternoon... so we waited and waited, hopefully it will stop raining. My mother suggested to the kids "Let's pray!" -- even though she is not really religious, but she thought it will be fun to do it with kids. And we did! But yet, it didn't stop raining for a long time, so we had to change our plan -- quickly making dinner at home. BUT! While we were eating, the rain stopped!! Even though it was already after 6:00 pm, we quickly changed our clothes and got ready for the festival!
We were planning to go to the festival around 4:00 pm, and have dinner there. But then there was a rain shower and thunderstorms in the afternoon... so we waited and waited, hopefully it will stop raining. My mother suggested to the kids "Let's pray!" -- even though she is not really religious, but she thought it will be fun to do it with kids. And we did! But yet, it didn't stop raining for a long time, so we had to change our plan -- quickly making dinner at home. BUT! While we were eating, the rain stopped!! Even though it was already after 6:00 pm, we quickly changed our clothes and got ready for the festival!
Luke (right) and his cousins, Yuuma (left) and Kie (center).The boys are wearing the traditional Japanese festival outfit called jinbe. I think they are so cute!
Summer festivals always have a lot of small vending stalls -- with lots of different kinds of food, games, and toys, etc. -- like at a county fair in America. And I found out that there are so many NEW kinds of stalls now!
But my favorite festival game has always been kingyo sukui (goldfish scoop). The idea is that you have to scoop up a goldfish with a paper paddle -- it is very difficult to do without ripping the paper when it gets wet! There are always different sizes and various colored fish. I felt young again when I saw the game stalls this year! I always had fun times at the kingyo sukui when I was young.
Every town has its own style of dance and music. If you don't hear this song, you won't feel the real summer festival. But the music was too loud, Luke and Kie started to cry, so we knew it was time to go back to home (^-^) It was a fun night!
I took this video in the 2nd day at the festival -- the Naoe Kanetsugu parade. Kanetsugu was a Japanese samurai of the 16th-17th centuries. And he was born in our home town. This year we have a popular series about him on TV. And that makes our home town very famous and, believe it or not, there are a lot of tourists from all over Japan who visit here now. So, we had special Kanetsugu parade in this year's festival.
The last day of the festival, we always have a fireworks show! This is not a good video that I took in front of the house, but it gives you some idea. So many different colors and sizes of fireworks for an hour and a half. Summer festivals were such big things when my sister and I were young. When the last firework was done, we always felt a little bit sentimental, because we feel our summer was over -- little memories (^-^)
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