October Festival

Here are some pictures from last weekend's festival.  We are not 100% sure what it was about.  I heard someone say it was a harvest festival, but at work when I mentioned it, my host said something about it being a reenactment of a battle or something.  The kids dressed up in fancy clothes (M) and as a samurai (N), and they were part of a long procession that started with flag bearers, archers, samurai, and then the fancy girls. The whole thing was led by a drummer and the end of the parade had some big giant lanterns (?).

 

Here are some of the kids before the start of the parade.

 

Here is the dragon that wandered through the parade participants and occasionally would go up to unsuspecting children watching the parade and try to eat them.

 

M in her finery

 

M with one of her classmates

 

N acting the part of samurai

Here is the front end of a big long heavy pole with bells on it.  They would stand it up from time to time and lift it up and down to make the metal part bend and ring the bells.  It looked quite heavy.

 

Some of the procession

There was even more parade after the kids part (including the long poles above) that had a huge tree on a cart with prayers tied to it, and a giant chest, and taiko drummers.