Sunday, June 5, 2011

Oh ohh ah! Those summer nights...

Listening to: Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri
Currently drinking: Drip with white mocha powder

It's almost summer, and in Japan it's the beginning of matsuri, or festival, season. It's one of the most fun events for Japanese and foreigners alike, and yesterday was my first experience going to one! At first I wasn't really planning on going, my teeth still hurt pretty bad and I wanted to do some homework and laze about, but thanks to a little encouragement from friends back home via Skype, I decided to hitch a ride with the bandwagon and get on the festival train.

It is generally tradition in Japan for men an women to wear yukata, so a few of the girls had gone out and purchased some beautiful pieces. Unfortunately, I didn't get to wear one, but I still managed to look somewhat appropriate, which was nice.
Photo courtesy of Cauvin Mo
Delicious smelling food vendors lined every street. I was incredibly tempted to stop at each and every stand and shove my as much food into my face as possible, but unfortunately, and fortunately, I didn't have that much money, so I was only able to imagine what most of the food tasted like *sad face.* I DID, however, try a choco banana and it was oishii.


Wayyyy too many people 
These paper lantern floats were carried by at least
twenty people each and were accompanied by drums :)
The main event of the festival was the fireworks show that began as soon as it got dark. Some of our group was tired from all the day's festivities and decided to go home beforehand, but the rest of us remained behind and ran around the shrine trying to find the best view to watch hanabi, the Japanese word for fireworks (hana= flower and hi= fire, hi becomes bi when combined with hana.) After a while we got to an open area of park/street and stayed for a bit watching the display. As a side note; Japanese firework shows are different from the ones in America. Usually, back at home they have a giant build up towards the end, and everyone has general knowledge of about what time they should leave to miss traffic. In Japan, you never really know when they are going to stop, so you just have to guess about what time to leave to catch the subway not jam packed with people...oh well. We left after about twenty minutes and headed back to our respective dorms, exhausted, but (at least for me) truly happy to be experiencing true Japanese culture at its best.

Loads of love...and lattes <3

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