Fall Festival

Every 15th of October, the Japanese gather in many towns to celebrate and welcome the coming of Autumn. In the northern territories of Japan, the leaves have already begun to change color, and the weather is starting to dry out and get cool. This holiday festival is hosted by the various cities' shrines in conjunction with various homes and businesses who sponsor parade floats. A few days before this festival began, I noticed that there were long ropes tied up just above head level and running the length of the streets in town. The ropes had jaggedly cut pieces of paper hanging from them. I asked around a bit and finally learned from one of the ALTs that these are a representation of waterfalls. The water pours down on your head to purify you. It is a common practice in Japan to pour water over the head of a god's statue as a way of requesting a blessing or good fortune. In the shopping district here in Ito, there are seven gods of good fortune hidden at various spots among the shops with little fountains and a ladle for each god's head. it's one of the many fun little walking tours you can take here in Ito.

So, anyway, on October 15th, we got in the car and drove about 45 minutes from Ito to a small town on the west coast of the Izu Peninsula called Toi. Toi, we had heard, was hosting a wonderfully large festival. It was a beautiful day, and the scenery on the way there was great, but when we arrived, there wasn't much of a festival going on. There were only 3 food booths, and no kids' games or anything. There was a large stage set up with a Taiko Drum section, so we watch a little bit of the shows. Here are a couple of videos from that:

Here is a bit of the Taiko drummers in action.

Here is a traditional Autumnal dance performed by one of the ladies' social clubs of Toi. I'm not sure what all of this symbolizes, but it is beautiful to watch.

Since there wasn't much going on at this festival, we decided to take in Toi's real claim to fame: The World's Largest Flower Clock and acupressure walkway. This was a bit like some of the spots in America--largest ball of twine, tallest cheese wheel, etc. The acupressure walkway was about 150 feet of sheer foot agony. Supposedly, if you make it all the way around (barefoot), you will increase your health and well being by a huge amount. I think the relief of no longer having jagged rocks poking into the bottoms of my feet was what they intended me to interpret as a general feeling of health and well-being.
Here are a couple of photos:

A bit disappointed by the meager faire at the Toi festival, we hopped back in the car and drove to Ito, which we had heard was not even celebrating very much. We were sorely mistaken and should have stayed in Ito all day! When we arrived back in Ito at about 5 pm, there were booths set up all over the central area of town selling okonomiyaki, squid balls, shrimp, yakitori, corn dogs, candies, toys, and all kinds of stuff. People were everywhere, and everyone was already drunk (everyone over 20, that is). Then we saw the parade floats. Before you scroll down to the picture, try to imagine the streets of Ito at dusk. Japanese people everywhere lines the streets, swaying back and forth to hold tight on their three sheets to the wind. Many are laughing, sharing a toast, or just catching up on old times with friends they haven't seen in a while. There is music everywhere, the smells of festival food, and excitement fill the air, and then the most beautiful procession of parade floats begin to pass by.
This Float is a typical parade float for festivals. It is entirely made of carved and inlaid wood, and covered in lanterns that I later found out bear the names of various sponsors for the float. I was in awe of the sight of these floats. It was like something out of a dream. An American Expat who lives in Usami was there and laughed at my response to what he called a very heavy commercial advertisement. He was right, it turns out that many of the lanterns have names for local hotels and tourist spots in Ito.

Here is a shot of the procession coming down the street toward us. The people on the floats are from various families and businesses, and they waved and shouted greetings to their friends and neighbors as they passed by. It was all great fun. Each group passed by a table at which were seated judges, but I am unsure as to the criterion for judgment. There were dancers like the ladies you saw earlier, and a number of other acts. The next thing we saw was the "portable" shrines. I put portable in quotation marks because these shrines are portable in the sense that they are not bolted to the ground, but it takes anywhere from 30 to 150 people to carry these things down the streets. Here's a video I shot of one of the shrines making its way down the street. I apologize for the sideways view. One of the reasons I have taken so long to post this is because i was looking for a video editor that could fix my error. I thought that the camera would automatically recognize "up" like it does for the photographs, but alas, no. At any rate, here's the clip:


Later in the evening, I got some footage of a portable shrine carried exclusively by children.

Later in the evening, I heard a bustle and strange noises and laughing coming from the crowd, so I nudged my way onto the street to see what was happening. Unfortunately, I didn't have the video camera ready for what I saw. At first, I thought it was a bunch of geisha pulling a parade float, but as they got closer, I realized it was about 25 Japanese men in drag, highly intoxicated, and pulling the heavy wooden parade float behind them in a flat-out run. Here's the only picture I got of them before they sped past us. It was a riot. Everyone enjoyed laughing at their friends, neighbors, and relatives dressed in drag.

So, that about wraps it up for the fall festival. The next big festival will be New Year's Eve, and i should have some good fireworks shots from that. Sayonara for now!