Momoishi Matsuri

Are you beginning to notice a pattern here? Summer is festival season in Japan and every town, whether large or small, holds a town festival (matsuri). From what I've observed, it seems like you could go to a festival every weekend from the end of June through the end of September-without ever leaving your prefecture. This past long-weekend played host to my hometown's festival, one of the last festivals of the season (Shimoda has theirs next weekend). Although Momoishi is a small town (our population is under 10,000), our matsuri is surprisingly robust and runs for four straight days. I was especially amazed by the floats, which were the best out of any I've seen in the Ken. A few nights before the festival, Superintendent Komata took me to where the floats were being built and even after seeing their incredibly-skilled handiwork there, I couldn't believe what the final product looked like.





It's also worth noting that unlike in America, Japanese floats are totally bad ass, as evidenced by all the evil things below.



Thanks to the festival, I was able to appreciate why teaching in a small town is so awesome. I teach basically every kid in this town, from kindergarten all the way up to the last year of junior high school. Consequently, when I show up at something like the town festival, I'm immediately mobbed by crowds of excited children. Below are just a few of my adoring fans, always ready to flash a peace-sign in the event of a photograph.




Also, I got to see my students participate in various events, which was cool. The students below got to ride on one of the floats during the parade and played the drums. I went to drum practice once and I can tell you, it was no easy beat that they were playing. I was actually supposed to drum in the parade myself on Saturday but when I showed up to the festival, it was over. Turns out that I misheard the superintendent: what I had thought was nijuujisanjuupun (20:30 or 8:30 pm) was actually nijisanjuupun (2:30 pm). Whoops.

There was also a drumming competition with various teams competing. Again, all of the participants were students of mine.


Finally, there was the arcade area, lined with numerous food booths, fishing games and vendors selling everything from plastic masks to playstations.

There are a number of traditional Japanese festival foods and luckily for me, they are all deep-fried. I chose to partake of some takoyaki (octopus balls). They look rather disgusting but taste pretty good. Take my word for it.