The Weekend of the Three Matsuri

October 12, 2014

                Well, it’s only Sunday night and Adam and I have already gone to three festivals this weekend.  Saturday morning, we got up early and headed for Nagoya (about a 45 minute train ride).  We rode the train past the main Nagoya station to a station closer to the port.  After buying an all day metro pass, we found our way to the aquarium.  Although it was a little expensive (2000 yen each), we decided it was worth it.  Apparently, it’s the largest aquarium in Japan.  We got to see beluga whales, orcas, dolphins, sea turtles, seals, tropical fish etc.  I liked the seals the best, they’re just so cute.  They also train the dolphins and whales to do tricks.  The dolphin show was especially impressive as you can see from the video.

                After having enough of the sea, we headed downtown to the Osu Shopping District for the street performers festival.  

This is the "Beckoning Cat" that is supposed to bring luck in romantic relationships, luckwith money, and business prosperity. 

      At first, we weren’t too impressed as there were so many people we couldn’t see the performers.  The shopping district was so busy, shops everywhere, performers here and there, and a parade of people dressed up passing randomly and pushing everyone to the sides.  The women in the parade are remarked for their particular way of walking.  They need to support themselves on a man’s shoulder because their shoes are these large wooden blocks. 

We finally found a place to sit and watched a performer who could play bagpipes of all things!  We also saw some acrobats, a magician/man who made balloon dogs, and finally a mime. 

                

Our last stop in Nagoya was the Cathedral.  They had 6:30pm vigil Mass that we were able to attend.  It was really beautiful church, very much modelled after European styles.

               

 On our way home that night, Adam wanted to ask a man if the subway we were getting on was the right one.  So, he goes up to him and says, “Sumimasen.” (Excuse me) and the guy moves over.  This happened a couple times, as the guy kept slightly glancing up at Adam and giving him a weird look.  The thing was that there was so much room around both of them.  It was like the man was thinking, “Why do I have to move?  There’s so much room around me.”  Adam claims that he probably didn’t hear the “sumimasen” which would mean he was uncomfortable with Adam’s proximity. 

                Today, we went to our Japanese class and learned the directions: North, South, East, West.  Afterwards, we headed for the Ogaki Festival.  At the Suitopia centre, we had the option to be in the festival parade and carry the float.  We opted to just attend the festival and were glad we did.  We arrived just in time to see a parade of baseball teams, and a marching band of elementary/junior high kids (probably the most impressive thing of the day).  

We headed down looking for food and were stopped by a blocked off square of road where these samurai paraded around and then fired guns. 

We found some food and watched traditional dancing.  (Can you spot the tired little girl?)

The second parade started with preschoolers hanging onto a rope pulling their floats.

 

This parade stopped for about half an hour while other performers did their thing (their thing being a portrayal of a history story or a legend?)  In situations like this, it would be rather nice to know some Japanese to be able to understand a little of what is happening. 

 The parade continued.  In Japan, there is no law against public drinking.  So many of the people in the parade were drinking beer and had someone pulling a cart of belongings/beer behind them.  Besides that, the parade is much like a Canadian one.  Different companies use it to advertise and hand out fans.  The main difference is that they carry the floats instead of attaching them behind trucks and that the parade goes up the left side of the street and then down on the right side making an oval.

                That evening, we heard that there was a fireworks festival North of Tarui at a shrine.  We didn’t know where the shrine was and we thought the fireworks started at 6:20 pm.  We headed out into the dark night on our bikes.  We couldn’t find the shrine at first, so we decided to ask some people who conveniently had never heard of the shrine.  We wandered a little ways further and found a shrine with a bunch of bikes parked at it.  We saw a son and father climbing up so we followed them.  As we got to the top the father looked around.  We asked him about the fireworks and he seemed to communicate that they would happen later (this communication involved both Adam and the man pretending to be a firework).  After this “conversation,” we were still unclear on where the fireworks would be.  On our way back down from the shrine, we saw people climbing down a mountain a little ways off and figured the shrine must be up there and the fireworks are done (there are many, many shrines in Tarui).  We weren’t sure though since the man had told us 7:30pm.  After following random people coming down from the mountain, as inconspicuously as two foreigners can, we decided that we certainly must have missed the fireworks and to head home.  On the way, we passed a parking lot with a bulletin board and some people reading it.  We asked again about the fireworks, they said that they started at 7:30pm and that this parking lot was a good place to see them.  So we waited as gradually more and more people showed up at this parking lot.  Sure enough at 7:30pm sharp, the fireworks started.  We had a great view of them too as they were being shot off in the field in front of us.  The fireworks seemed to be much bigger than the ones we have in Canada.  They shot them off one at a time and they went on for 40 minutes.  Anyways, we were glad that we had gone out and glad too that we randomly found the best place to watch them and it wasn’t at a shrine.