No post yesterday, S.O. and I went to the O-bon festival. Now the really savvy folks out there should be asking why an O-bon in July, since August is the proper season for O-Bon. You would be correct, but the activities here in Japan try to match their events so as not to conflict with each other, and our host city has their Ao-dori festival next week. So July it was. Played the Taiko drum, but sensei back benched me for the really hard one. I think Sensei made the right call, especially since I missed 10 days of practice during my mid-east run. Still it was a lot of fun. Also got a rare sighting of the S.O. in a Yukata (I’ve never seen her in a kimono….she does not like wearing either of them.). She prides herself on being a modern woman, but for some reason today she wanted to hold up Japanese tradition. I’m glad she did:
Lots of folks dancing and holding up the Japanese tradition:
This is a mikoshi. (??). It a portable shrine that weighs over a 1000 pounds! I took my turn in the circle helping to carry it, but because I slightly taller than a lot of the folks in the group, got the stuffing beaten out of my shoulder! Still a lot of fun and few more beers helped to deaden the pain.
All in all a good time was had by us and those like us.
Skippy-san
