All day & night on Saturday & Sunday, hordes of paraders marched up the main drag chanting "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry"! Maybe it was the noise caused or the inconvenience to autos and pedestrians, but the AOBA Matsuri
(青葉まつり) participants seemed regretful of their actions. (Okay, I know they really chanted それ/so-ray, but it sounded like "SORRY".)
Actually it's a very cool parade, with teams of similarly dressed partakers waving fans, playing flutes and/or beating drums to the それ-beat. Others carried Mikoshi (神輿、みこし), a portable Shinto shrine. There are hundreds of food booths, selling various forms of meat/fish/seafood on a stick and a cornucopia of other edibles. A couple of my students were selling kaki-gori (カキゴｵリ or shaved ice with flavoured syrup) and I had to get one.
It was a lot of fun, but got a bit tiring after awhile, especially when the pounding of the drums equalled the pounding of one's hungover head.
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