Don't Sigh! I went to the annual Dontosai Festival at my local Shrine/Temple (Yakushidou) where people gather to toss their old New Year's decorations in a giant bonfire and pray for good health and fortune.
For dinner, I ate a savoury pancake called an Okonomiyaki. The lineup was really long though that gave me a chance to watch it being prepared.
The finished product.
While in line, I espied a mini-parade of dudes in white and snapped a quick pick.
I've gone to Dontosai before (here and here) and both times I didn't get to see the half-naked guys traipsing around in loincloths. This time, I went earlier and was fortunate enough to witnessHadaka-Mairi, and witnessed some loinclothed men and ladies.
I'd always heard that it was a guy-thing, I never expected to see young gals doing it.
On the way home, a tiny bakery was doling out amasake, a super-sweet porridge. Pretty good but similar to putting way too much sugar in you oatmeal.
A nice festival to witness, I'll probably go in another 3 years.
Addendum: officially pissed off. It took ages to upload those videos above and none of them show up! Grrr...
Now I have to upload them to YouTube and then paste them here. Sigh!
It's the annual Tanabata festival in Sendai and rain or shine (mostly rain), thousands of people flocked downtown to view the big banners. As a few of my students pointed out to me this morning, there are seven auspicious decorations to adorn the bamboo poles. Paper strips, a purse, a paper kimono, fishing nets, paper cranes, a trash net, and streamers. That's a lot of paper!
Details can be found in the following picture. (Scammed from here. Click that for the significance surrounding each item.)
Knowing now what to look for, I trekked my way through the masses hoping to snap pics of the above. I think I got most of them.
One of several shops advertising for their wares, this is one of the funkier ones.
It was starting to rain again, so the salarymen came out to protect their banners.
Meow.
The five banners above are probably my favourite of the day.
Above is a massive collection of paper cranes dangling together. Below is an upshot of the swoop of cranes.
I was running late, so I didn't cross the street to check out McDonalds.
Apart from all the banners (and the above is only a sampling of them), I photographed a few goodies for the kiddies. No Godzilla, so I didn't buy anything this time.
I don't think these guns are actually for sale. You need to win them by accumulating points or something.
Hey, is that a Stormtrooper and Darth mask? Indeed they are.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a good angle on the Chihuahua peddler. He is getting tackier and tackier every year.
I don't know if this is a local celeb or not, but she was interviewing random gawkers.
I wandered over to Kotodai Koen to sample their foodstuffs and arrived just in time to hear a military brass band belt out Somewhere over the Rainbow.
I was going to buy a fish on a stick but wasn't in the mood for it.
Instead, I bought some Gyutan. What is extra-cool about the cooking process is the use of a blow torch to speed up the process.
The only thing that I purchased was a lucky draw kuji from the Ghibli Florist. They always have some unique things available for 500 yen a pop. I drew twice and received two Castle in the Sky facecloths. I bought one more and, sure enough, I landed another one!
I may go back on Wednesday and spend a little bit more time wandering around instead of today's rush job.
