Yasaka Jinja Festival-- 八坂神社の夏祭り

I can't believe it's been a year already since the last Yasaka Festival. I didn't even know it existed before last year, even though I've been here for almost 4 years now. My dad was here last year and we saw it by coincidence. Well, today I heard the loud beat of the drum over the AC and decided to take a look outside. I was not disappointed! Down the street came the giant drum, pulled by a few dozen people. Following behind was the shrine being carried on shoulders. From the way it was weaving and jostling down the street, it must have been quite heavy! And behind that was a wagon-like vehicle being pulled mostly by small children (it took about 30 of the little boogers too!) that had a dancer, a drum-player, and a flute player on it. I didn't go down to the street this time. It was monstrously hot, and I saw it last year after all... I know--totally lazy. Unfortunately, I didn't have the presence of mind to take pictures until the last wagon, but I did get some pictures!

Here comes the last part of the procession. The station is at the far end of the street. This shot is from my front door on the seventh floor.

A close-up. The dancer is on the left, the drummer on the right front, and the flute player somewhere behind or inside. It was like 90+ degrees and 50% humidity or more. All of these guys were awesome!

Looking straight down. You can see a lot of the kids pulling the wagon.

More kids. The wagon's almost visible!

キター！It's here!

Going...

Going...

Gone. See you next year! (Well, maybe I won't, but anyway...)

Tanabata Matsturi-- 七夕祭り

Happy Tanabata Festival!

This festival happens every year on July 7th. It's about two (relatively minor) gods who used to be hard-working and good, but after they fall in love and marry, they begin to neglect their duty. The God of Heaven gets angry and separates them across the Milky Way (aka River of Heaven), never to meet again. But the lovely young woman, who happens to be the God of Heaven's daughter, pleads with her father to let them meet again. He is moved by her sadness and allows them to meet once a year during the festival. Read the full story here.

The bummer part is, the two lovers can only meet if it's not raining (read story at the above link), which used to be almost every year on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. However, on the July 7th in the solar calendar, it's almost always raining--in Japan, at least. They had a good run for several hundred years, but now they can do naught but gaze at one another from across the Milky Way.

Anyway, what we do in Japan for the festival is inscribe wishes or favors we want to be granted and hang them on a bamboo switch about one week before the festival day. Many young people wish for their one true love (to borrow a phrase from Disney ^_^), but it's also common to wish for special skills, such as the ones in which the young lovers excelled before they began to neglect their duty. Truly anything is okay, as you can see by some of the wishes my friends from the volunteer Japanese class and I wished for.

Like how I put it above our wedding picture? The cats went nuts trying to think of a way to get at the dangly things. They especially wanted to eat the bamboo and dove for it if you carried them anywhere near it!

Let's see... We have:

"I wish for happiness for all the people in the world." (second from left)
"I wish for a society where we all can live happily (lit. enjoyably) together." (red one in the center)
"I wish that I will be able to study to my heart's content." (second from right, written by yours truly)
and...
"Pin Pin Korori", which means something like "To live life to its fullest" or to put it another way, "To live a long and healthy life until you kick the bucket". (yellow one with big letters on the right)

I hope YOU all had a happy day that day.

(postdated 9/15/2008)