Hanamaki Matsuri

Summer matsuri are winding down all across Japan. This weekend, Hanamaki city, just a short drive north of Kitakami, had their festival. I teach at two schools in Hanamaki, so all week, teachers and students have been talking about the upcoming float parades and shishi odori. There was also a lot of concern about the weather: this is also the time of year when typhoons are pretty common and one was on it's way.

The weather was still good on Saturday, if a bit muggy, so I ventured out into the streets of Hanamaki to see what was what. This is what I found:

Some of my students, waiting for the parade...

Some more of my students and fellow teachers in the parade!

 The floats are all hand made. Some of them have themes based on folklore. Pictured above we have the story of Momotaro, or "Peach Boy."

 

These kids had a great view. In fact, up and down the street, families were hanging out the windows of their above-store apartments to watch the parade go by.

 Sharks and rabbits and tigers, oh my!

 A very typical Japanese festival game involves a trough of goldfish, a paper net and a little skill. For a few yen, you get a bowl and a paper net and try to catch as many fish as you can before the paper tears. I didn't get a chance to try it myself, but watched for a while. It looks like the trick is to not so much scoop a fish but to sort of ladle it into the bowl. I watched one kid catch about 10 fish before his net fell apart, but another kid dipped his net only to have a fish swim right through it.

Might be one of those "easier said than done" things.