Photos from Kandatsu
Long Weekend: Respect for The Aged Day
Setting off on a train journey of proportions to rival the Trans-Siberian (or, so my teachers at school would have me believe - its only three hours) on Saturday morning, I was soon leaving the sprawling metropolis of Tokyo and entering the sprawling rice fields of Ibaraki.
Having missed out on finding out what on earth an Umbrella Dance was, when sports festival was postponed due to the rain, I was out to Ibaraki to catch up with some friends I met at orientation, and to visit the Ishioka Matsuri - apparently one of Japan's biggest festivals, lasting three days.
Its a little hard to describle the sights at this festival with a large degree of accuracy, especially given the strange assortment of food such as pink squid (yeh, that makes sense), so please look at the photo album above.
I do, however, know where Pachinko street is now.
Apparently the point of this festival is to drag all these gods across town (after waking them up from their slumber in shrines across the area), bring them all into the one place, parade them around in front of the people, and ask for blessings to have a good downpour of rain, which i guess is good for the farmers.
Anyway, it seemed to work. From about sunset Sunday night, right in the middle of the three day festival, it started to rain.
Yay for the gods in boxes.
Monday morning it was still going.... thunderstorms, torrential downpours... very good planning to have gone to the festival Sunday afternoon rather than Monday morning.
At least it dried up in time to get on the train back to Odawara.
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