This is video of the locals carrying a portable shrine, or "mikoshi". They bring it all through their neighborhood and eventually end up at the main shrine building which is just a couple minutes walk from my house. This particular mikoshi is for a neighborhood in Haneda called Nishimachi, which was my host mother's birthplace. Every once in a while during the procession, they stop walking and start shouting and then shaking the mikoshi. I'm not exactly sure what it means, but I was pretty amazed at how much they can shake it--these things are incredibly heavy. Watch how it pulls them right off the ground when their side is in the air. My favorite part is at the end when one of the guys in the blue "hapi" (traditional clothes) does a little bit of a tip-toe dance for no apparent reason...
And here are a few other photos from that same night:
- Left: Hiroko and Laura waiting for our yakisoba to be cooked. This was officially the sweatiest man I saw all evening. Delicious food, though. :)
- Right: Lots of people came for this festival. Even people who grew up here but now live somewhere else will come back to town for this event. You can see the main shrine, Haneda Jinja, in the background. This is the same shrine that Hiroko's sister, Yoshiko, took me to for New Years'.
- Left: Hiroko's daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren came back as well for the evening. This is a photo of the youngest grandaughter, Cocona, with "Uncle Yota" (my host brother). Cocona is about 18 months.
- Right: this is Cocona's 4-year old sister, Yuria, showing off her new toy from grandma.
- Left: Heather joined us towards the end of the evening. Here's the three of us eating "choco-bananas", which are pretty much incredible. You can always find a booth selling them at local festivals in the summertime, but this is the first time I actually tried one.
- Right: this is what the streets of Haneda looked like at night. Pretty nice to look at on the walk home.
1 comment:
Like the video--add more! Cute little grandchildren!
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