Kawagoe Festival October 15

Last month there was a festival in Kawagoe. No one really knows what its about, believe me, I tried to ask many of my students but most people couldn't really give me a detailed answer. The gist of it is that different areas from the city each have a float or dashi (portable shrine) and basically they celebrate and there's a strange type of musical celebration. Its SO busy, there are crazy amounts of people and you can only walk up the main street one step at a time. The street sides are lined w/ booths where youcan buy candy and festival food, which is awesome. There was takoyaki (balls w/ squid in it), Okonomiyaki (savory type pancakes), Yaki Soba (fried noodles), meats on sticks, corn on the cob, Japanese style baked potato and chocolate covered bananas. These people really take their fesivals seriously... The atmostphere was very fun ... alcohol was also sold quite freely from a giant truck.

Delicious GIANT Takoyaki. It was so good, and watching them back it was even more delicious. It was 5 for 500 Yen but eating 2 or 3 was totally filling. Roberta and I split a pack. Takoyaki is essentially balls of dough that have lots of seasoning and a piece of tako or octopus in the middle. Then, sauce is poured on top w/ bonito (fish) flakes. Quite tasty. My coworker describes them as delicious pockets ofr burning lava for your mouth as they can be quite hot. Once I tried to shove one into my mouth and it was burning ...especially when it exploded in my mouth...The dashi (portable shrines that I mentioned) ... There were about 3 or 4 and people play music from on top of these and they're wearing costumes. They are even people standing at the very top. Each dashi is moved by a hoard of people at the bottom. I can imagine that they're quite heavy. Roberta, Nicky (my third housemate) and a lady all dressed up and helping out at the festival. The start of the music competition that I previously mentioned. There are two giant dashi that each have their seperate sets of people w/ costumes playing instruments. Each float has its own main person that plays the flute. They are both supposed to play different melodies but the side that messes up and starts copying their opponents melody loses. That's what I gathered from students, but due to the language barrier.... possibly I might be totally mistaken :D It was quite interesting though :) Had a very old school type of feel.Some man in traditional matsuri (festival wear) directing traffic so that no one really goes near the floats as it is read to move to another area.

Two dudes making mochi, which is a sticky kind of ball. Basically, its rice that they throw into the wooden thing and they pound on it until it becomes a sticky kind of goopy consistency and form balls and put it on sticks. Looks like it takes alot of effort and there's alot of grunting and screaming involved. The weird thing is that while I was taking this picture there were some other gaijin (foreigners) watching with a bunch of Japanese people... and they kept screaming MATSURI and the Japanse people seemed like they enjoyed this crazy gaijin making a fool of himself. Quite weird....