Hachinohe Sansha Taisai Festival

Hachinohe, the city about 45 minutes away from my little town, has a few big festivals each year. One of their biggest, though, has to be Sansha Taisai, or the Three Shrines Festival. It's a huge festival where they shut down the road through downtown and parade giant floats through it. Each neighborhood in Hachinohe is responsible for making (and paying for, through donations... many, many donations) their individual float, and there's always a 'best of show' picked every year. This particular festival happens August 1st-3rd generally, and last year was actually my first year going to see it. I went with my boss and my then just-arrived fellow JET, and it was a blast. I really enjoyed watching all the floats, and I enjoyed eating all the festival food even more. In the crazy, horribly humid heat of summer in Japan, festivals are the one thing that make sweating through each day worthwhile. Now, without further ado, PHOTO DUMP. As always, click on any of the pictures to embiggen!

Sannohe Spring Festival

Super quick post about the Sannohe Spring Festival that happened this last May. It's a really tiny festival, with just a few booths selling food, but there's lots of cherry blossoms so it's all good. Spring is all about cherry blossoms anyways, and I've decided I need to find a way to plant one in my backyard whenever I head back the States. In the mean time, why am I posting pictures of cherry blossoms right now? Because it just started snowing a few days ago, and I already need to remind myself that after every winter, beautiful spring comes, complete with delicate little pink flowers.

Sannohe Autumn Festival, Year 3

As is obvious by the title, this is the third time I've talked about this little festival in my town, but as the floats are different every year, it's still worth posting pictures of. In case you missed it the last time, every autumn my town makes a bunch of floats and tows them through the streets, singing and dancing. There's a lot of float type festivals in Aomori ken, so our little festival isn't well known at all. It doesn't matter though, since it's important to the people who live here. What's different about this post this time, is that these were all taken with Aaron's spiffy new DSLR camera, so hopefully the pictures will be even better than usual!

I usually don't post pictures of specific people on here, mostly because Japan is crazy with their privacy laws, and I don't want to get in trouble posting pictures of my students. However, the family above are not my students; they are Aaron's, and they are awesome. The little boy is probably one of my favorite kids in town; I am in love with his smile. So, I figured I'd share his smile with you.

Again, not usually with posting pictures of individual people, but this is one of Aaron's favorite shots that he took that day. This is also one of his students, although he's going to be one of mine starting this next semester. He ran up behind Aaron and tickled him or something, then tried to run away while Aaron threatened to take his picture. Aaron actually did snap a few shots, but most of them blurred as the boy zigged this way and that; this was the only one that took, and the expression of sheer fun on the little imp's face makes Aaron love this picture. This boy really is a good kid.

This is the last picture I'm going to highlight in this post, but it's my favorite of the whole batch. I don't know this little girl, neither does Aaron, but she was one of the 'Festival Girls' of the float parade; her and the other girl led the parade at one point. Apparently the little girl got tired of carrying her decorative tree branch at some point, because when Aaron snapped this shot, she was sweeping the road. Maybe it was dirty in her little mind....who knows. All I know is it's adorable, and I love how this shot turned out. Everything from here on is going to be another photo dump, so enjoy! I am actually in two pictures this time, can you find me?

Sannohe Autumn Festival, Year 2!

So I've discussed this festival before, but last time I didn't have any pictures to speak of, since I was actually participating in it. It's kinda hard to take pictures when you're helping lug a giant float up a hill, and since Aaron didn't come out to Japan to join me until after this festival started my first year, he couldn't help me out with pictures either. Fortunately, he was here the second year, and now we can all benefit from his picture-taking abilities!

In case you forgot, which I don't blame you if you did, the Autumn Festival in my town involves each neighborhood making a float (by hand!), then pulling it through the main street of town in a parade. Each float is judged by a panel, and winners are chosen every year. Along the street the floats are pulled through, little food booths and shops sell their wares, and the delicious smell of yakitori permeates the air. Little girls wear yukatas and do up their hair, boys wear happi coats and run around, and everyone is just in a jovial mood.

Each float also has drummers and flute players on it, as well as their own unique song that the float pullers sing as they walk. It's very loud, as all the floats are playing at once, even though they usually try to put a little distance between each one. At the end of the parade, however, the floats turn around and head back to their sheds, and on their way they meet the other floats. When this happens, they battle. The floats turn towards each other, the float song changes and becomes more intense, and the two rival floats try to out play each other. Normally it's just loud, but the battles are sheer cacophony. It's pretty exciting though, I have to admit, and you can check out a video of one battle all the way at the bottom of this post.

The picture above shows the 11 Cats, which is a famous children's book here that was actually written by a man who lived in Sannohe. As such, the cats are kind of the town's mascot. This float was also the winner of last year's festival. Yes, that's right, last year's. This festival happens every October, which means this year's happens in another two months. As Aaron took these pictures, they lived on his camera for quite a while, then were dumped onto his profile on the computer, and I completely forgot about them. I will only say, 'better late than never', which I believe is now this blog's official motto. Enjoy the rest of the pictures of that balmy fall day last year, and look forward to more of the same in another couple of months!