A few weeks ago, my favorite little former host sister from Nagoya turned 10. Conveniently, many girls here in Fukui really wanted to go to Nagoya the weekend of her birthday, so it wasn't hard to fill a car with people for the journey over. The Fukui girls, however, had no idea any birthdays were taking place. They had an ulterior motive: a 2 meter long, wooden ulterior motive.
WARNING: the pictures in this entry probably aren't so great to show the kids (even though many children were at this festival)
Every year in spring a couple of shrines in Nagoya host festivals in celebration of fertility just in time for spring planting. One festival takes on a female theme and the other has a male theme. The male themed festival draws in the largest crowd, including the most packed group of foreigners I have ever seen in Japan (what does this say about the collective maturity of we non-Japanese residents, I wonder?)
There is food (pictured above) to match the theme, and a small parade. During the parade, people marching hand out many cups of free sake to onlookers and encourage some good luck pats on various wooden "structures".
The festival ends when the "structure" enters the shrine at the end of the parade. At the end of it all, the Western onlooker can't help but laugh at the large gathering of pale skinned persons and lament the great shame we've been taught to render our own bodies. Would this festival be so intriguing to us if we didn't deem it so naughty? The Japanese don't seem to find much offensive about it.
Now, to make up for the strange pictures above, I've added a nice sunset photograph from the Oasis structure in the Sakae district of Nagoya.
Although Fukui was warming to nice spring temperatures, the mountain village still had snow and a chill in the air. There isn't much to say about the village except that it's quiet, peaceful and scenic. People who live there seem to enjoy tending to tourists' needs, managing agriculture and owning dogs. Really not a lot to do in the area for anyone with an itch for livin' la vida loca.
We stayed the night in one of the houses. this is the main room where we ate. The fire pit in the middle is the traditional means of heating houses and cooking meals. We used an electric space heater in our room. Although the village experience may not sound very exciting, it was a great escape. Day after day going to a job with no work was wearing on my nerves, and the hot bath and quiet evening away re-energized me just in time to take on spring break.
