Okazaki Matsuri

Pictures from July 20 trip to Gifu

These are some pictures from the trip to Gifu, two weeks ago. I've only just got them up on Picasa and I thought you might like to see more than the few I posted with the entry on that trip.

Last night I participated in the Okazaki Matsuri (Festival) and will post those pictures also. It was a wonderful, thought very hot and sweaty, experience. Getting to meet Japanese people outside the school setting was the best part. As a group of "gai-jin", foreigners, we stood out and got lots of surprised looks, but also many offers of free tea and beer. Before we got started in the parade, a few of us were invited to see the float from another group. We talked in our halting Japanese with the group members and they gave us something delicious to eat and something cool to drink. It was a godsend, as our group had only beer to drink and no food. My participation was totally a last minute, spur of the moment, thing and I had not eaten since noon.

The parade started at night fall, about 7:30 and went on until about 9:00. We were carrying Yamasa's new shrine, dedicated to the god of learning Japanese, through the streets, following the shrine builders big and impressive shrine. Our job was to look genki (lively, happy, energetic) and to shake and spin the shrine around as it was making it's way down the parade path. Behind our little shrine we were pulling a rolling bar serving beer. The bar was left from a St. Patrick's day celebration and was certainly Declan Murphy's idea. (Declan, if I haven't mention this before, is the director of the Discovery program and various other things. I've heard he is from Australia originally, but has left that all behind. He's lived here in Japan for over 10 years, however, he clings to his Irish roots or heritage, or something, and keeps strict hours in the local pub, the Zig Zag.) The bar rolled easily but it was still a lot of work for the "horses", me and several other students, to look genki and make the progress look interesting. For those who have been asking for pictures of me or complaining that the ones I publish are uncomplimentary (he he), there are several of me in the Picasa album, below, so check it out.

Tonight I will go to see the famous fireworks that are put on every year for this festival, some of the best in Japan I am told, and will report on that in the future. I still haven't gotten around to writing a piece on my classes and teachers, but this is definitely coming. Stay posted. Ja mata.

Okazaki Matsuri