Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Autumn Fest

About a week ago, we went to a Chosa (Harvest) Festival in the town of Toyohama. Around this time, each town or neighborhood has their own harvest festival to pay tribute to their neighborhood shrine and honor the gods of harvest. In this festival, there were about twenty different 2-ton real-gold-tassled floats that community members parade around the neighborhood before heading up to the local shrine, and then they swing it around the town square to pay tribute to three main gods. The floats are huge, heavy, and wheeled by a group of about fifty or more people (mostly men) each. Occasionally, the men would hoist the float off the wheels and move the giant float with their own strength. To dull the pain of moving a 2-ton float, most of the men got drunk. So, it was pretty funny.
Here is one of the floats:

You stare at me, I stare at you:

Cash loves Nauto. Nauto loves girls. Girls love Nauto holding an American baby!

The floats light up at night--when the real fun begins!

Fox tries to pull a float without the help of alcohol:

1 comments:

Dave said...

I think I saw it move a little bit, FOX! Way to go :) It's cold here, and it's already snowed a bunch :0... so I hope you're having fun with your fancy festivals and short-sleeved shirts.. Pssh.
Dave