August is a huge time of celebration in our neighborhood with the Hanchimangu Shine festival. Every 3 years things are even more exciting - every neighborhood digs out their portable shrine and joins together dressed in traditional outfits to march the shrine over to the main Shrine and around the surrounding areas.
We had planned to go see the festivities as they parade up near the school but i was woken up by a bunch of cheering and noise as the shrines marched by our house in the morning so i had thought i slept in. But a quick check of the clock told me it was 5:45am and that the neighborhood take this festival very seriously!
Part of the festival is to throw water on the portable shrines - which has the added benefit of cooling off those carrying it on a hot summer day (you will see one shot of Sumire and Yuki's cousins son trying to throw water as well). Note how the different neighborhoods all wear outfits for their particular area. It seemed like all came out to walk with their neighborhood group in the parade and to switch off with carrying the shrine. I imagine there were a lot of tired people at work on Monday.
The event was an amazing display of one way Japan works together to build a sense of community.
We had planned to go see the festivities as they parade up near the school but i was woken up by a bunch of cheering and noise as the shrines marched by our house in the morning so i had thought i slept in. But a quick check of the clock told me it was 5:45am and that the neighborhood take this festival very seriously!
Part of the festival is to throw water on the portable shrines - which has the added benefit of cooling off those carrying it on a hot summer day (you will see one shot of Sumire and Yuki's cousins son trying to throw water as well). Note how the different neighborhoods all wear outfits for their particular area. It seemed like all came out to walk with their neighborhood group in the parade and to switch off with carrying the shrine. I imagine there were a lot of tired people at work on Monday.
The event was an amazing display of one way Japan works together to build a sense of community.
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| from our balcony at 545 am |
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| this guy couldn't get enough water! |
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