Shinpara Matsuri

As Matsuri season winds on in the immediate area, Shinpara, the community I live in held their wildly popular matsuri last night and tonight. Here you can see all 10 people from the community came out, so it was a great success!
No actually, Shinpara is a pretty far spread out community that is split into smaller areas, each of which has their own Yattai- or Japanese style parade float. Here you can see 4 of them, though sadly none of my yattai pictures came out very well.
You can also see the local shrine (dark, but it's in the background here), where Ritsy had to dig into her wallet so that we can offer some money in order to pray. Don't worry! It's not that much, I think 5 yen is an optimal offering, though we could only find a pair of 10 yen pieces.
Though her family don't live there now- she grew up with her friend Manami (you may recall they visited us, and we visited them previously) in the area. So we ran into her and Shogo and Eiho, their dad was drinking with Manami's parents, so we didn't see him. They were all happy to see me of course, and the two boys challenged me to a race. It's tough to teach kids such valuable lessons, but naturally I had to beat them! Sadly today my legs were soar from all the running...

You can see how big Ritsy's stomach is getting now- junior - or kicky-kins as I have started calling it, is definitely almost ready to come out!

On a sad note, we were given notice of a wake and a funeral in our neighborhood today. The man, aged 37, leaves behind a wife and young child. He was an avid motorcyclist and had gone for a trip up to nearby Toyohashi and lost control of his bike and was hit by a truck. Very sad. I had met him not too long ago too. He was at the Dainenbutsu practice I had gone to see- I remembered him as being quite nice. I guess the thing that struck me the most about it is his young age (just 2 years older than Ritsy and I), seems that side of life has decided to start taunting us now...

Hiryu Matsuri

Last weekend on Saturday evening, Ritsy and I decided to check out the Hiryu festival near the Tenryu river- not too far from our home. I think I might have to adjust my way of thinking as I convinced my poor pregnant wife to walk the 2.5 kms rather than busing or driving there. Well she went along with it and it didn't seem to have any negative effects. To get to the area where the festival was, we had to climb the stairway pictures above which, apparently, has only be used by 1-2 people ever...
Hiryu means flying dragon and true to form they had a giant dragon suspended for all festival-goers to enjoy.
Ritsy allowed me to have a couple of beers and I tried out the offering of the Hamanako brewing company- so in this picture that is my beer she is holding- don't worry! We were able to witness a display of the Enshu Dianenbutsu (the source of much stress for me...) followed by a taiko drum performance. After that, the fireworks began.
As I got into the fireworks show, I started playing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon out in my head and started taking experimental pictures using the fireworks setting on my camera (Breathe, breathe in the air- don't be afraid to care...).
The climax of the Hanabi, the dragon started glowing with fire and it shot fireworks out of it's mouth.
Afterwards a plethora of fireworks followed ending in a series of body jarring, ear splitting bangs. It was actually pretty cool. We made the walk home and I slept on the couch for my thoughtlessness of making her walk.

Princesses and Cherry Blossoms

The roof of Sakura added a nice bit of atmosphere to the festival
On the weekend after teaching my Sunday class I headed out to Kiga, Hosoe to watch the hime sama douchu matsuri. This was my second time going to the festival but I still managed to really enjoy it. I always enjoy going to the Japanese festivals or special events. There is always a sort of carnival atmosphere, probably I get that feeling seeing all the food kiosks or the children happily scooping goldfish.

We started out by going to a nice Unagi restaurant called Hikifune, then we had to move our car about 2 kms out of the way to park. From there we could catch a shuttle bus back to the festival.
On the walk from the shuttle bus I saw something I hadn't seen before, they have built a recreation of the checkpoint that used to stand on the Hime sama road in eras past. It was quite lovely and a nice touch - last time I had gone, I was looking for the original checkpoint that had been destroyed a long time ago, and all I could find was a small sign.
We sat along the main pathway and enjoyed the viewing of the cherry blossoms- or hanami. Actually for me, I have always been a people watcher so I took in the crowd and the view and chatted with my students. It was very relaxing.
Finally the parade found its way onto the path and we could see the princess. She actually is not a real princess, every year there is a contest for a young lady to play the role, but I was impressed, the young lady smiled princessly and was quite beautiful!
To cap it all off, the princess and her posse made it to the center stage and performed a lovely dance for us all to enjoy!
It was a nice afternoon.