Mori Town Festival

Yesterday, I took my first train to Mori, about 35 minutes south of Yakumo, for their town festival. Taking the train was not too difficult, thanks to the promptness of everything in Japan. Although I got off of work at 4:30pm, I was able to walk (5 min.) to the train station, buy a ticket, and hop on the 4:45pm train which arrived precisely on time. I knew exactly when to get off, not only because I could read the station signs in hiragana, but also because the train arrived at 5:25pm, exactly as planned!

I met a fellow JET, we stopped for drinks and fried potatoes with chili spice sour cream, which looked a lot like butter to me. We went up to the shrine and carnival area, and there was a ton of delicious looking food and cool games including the one where you try to catch goldfish with only a thin piece of paper.

Here are some photos of the shrine and torii, traditional Japanese gate marking the entrance to a Shinto shrine:

The sunset was beautiful on the main street as we waited for the parade to begin. The main drag of Mori is called, "Odori" which means "Big Street."

Please enjoy the following photos and videos of the parade. We were serenaded by many town groups doing yosakoi, choreographed dances to traditional Japanese music. My favorites included one with this super genki old man and a little girl, and one with people wearing tutus with what I'm pretty sure a cross-dressing guy with a swan head located in a suggestive location:

After the dancers, we waited, and waited, and waited for the rest of the parade to begin, but it turned out that they were giving a bunch of ceremonial-type speeches a ways down the road, and then waiting until exactly 8:00pm to begin. The guy actually stood there and watched the bank's clock on the street until it struck 8:00 before they began. Well, now it occurs to me that since it was August 8th (8-8), the 8pm thing could have been of some significance.

At last, the rest of the parade began!The taiko drum groups were very talented:

And finally, I don't know what this is called, but a bunch of guys carried girls on big floats, and stumbled around likely drunk, back and forth across the street:

This one was particularly lovely:



Overall, my first festival in Japan was a blast!