August 21 2011: Arrival day and festival day! Mom arrived in time for the big float parade here in Misawa. Well, even early, time to go from the airport, shower, change, rest and then parade. She partook if "what's that?" mystery buying of festival food. (she did ask that her face not be shown due to fatigue....) Anyway, mystery of the day...aebleskiver type concoction stuffed with chopped up octopus. For those who don't know what an aebleskiver is: it's a Norwegian (or Scandinavian) type of batter sort of like pancakes, cooked in a special pan that has round pockets in which to put the batter. For the most part they are round. Sometimes, especially here in Japan, you can find them shaped like fish as well. Anyway, as a child they were a fun treat for breakfast, and really fun treat for the ever special "breakfast for dinner" meals. Though my parents never put in chopped up octopus, at most we might find a peach slice.
There was (as at all festivals) the delicious array of foods and smells. Above was a candy maker doing candies apples and blueberries. Yes, those are blueberries on top of those apples! They were huge this year!
Without fail, Andi can be found at an ice cream vendor. I think I have mentioned it's not really ice cream that we think of. It's more like an Italian ice type thing, but creamer than that. Not ice milk either. Whatever it is, it's good!
One of the many ice cream vendors pulling her cart. Now there's a way to supplement your retirement!
Above: The alcohol specialty store. (though you can buy beer, wine and Saki in any Japanese grocery store or "conbini") I just really like the window decorations for this store.
The start of the parade. Well, we could finally see the start of the parade. They'd already been marching for a bit by the time they got to us.
Above: Some of the spectators. Modesty wasn't really on everyone's mind!
The parade is generally made up of gigantic floats. Though there is some presentation of what I don't know....
The floats are mostly hand pulled by rope. The floats come mostly from Misawa. But lets do a little information bit. While the city proper is known as Misawa, the city is actually made up of many little communities that we would probably think of as villages. Some of the villages have sub villages within. So each little community area makes up a float, and members of that community are who pull it. Each village or sub village has like a village elder, or mayor type person who organizes the community efforts.
Above: The floats are tall! REALLY TALL! Notice that it is taller than the buildings. But, there are traffic signals coming up that hang out over the street. What to do, what to do....Well, we were at a stopping point. They stop, and their on board motors kick in. The float is mechanized. The top pieces fold down and/or slide down a track system and collapse to just the precise height to sneak under the traffic lights. Once cleared, they can put them right back up again. I should mention that the motors do help a tad in getting the floats up inclines and such....but for the most part are hand pulled.
A traditional summer outfit for the guys in a parade.
Above: Some of the floats are wide as well. When they come to a turn, the edge pieces move inward to narrow out the float. Those who are riding the float are fine where they are. Everything is designed to just fold in around the folks on the float.
Above: One of the floats that have had their top piece collapsed to get under the traffic signal.
I didn't get the peak of height for this one. The float before it had gotten a little stuck in the lowering process. So this one was already down when it came to us. But even with the float collapsed, there is still a lot of detail.
By the time the parade got to us, most of the adult pullers were pretty well sauced. There was even a "beer runner" for some of the floats to bring out some fresh drinks as they went by.
The last float of the day. Each float has a different theme. There is really no rhyme or reason to the themes. Just whatever the community agreed to. Some might center around a Shrine, if the Shrine plays a big part in their area. This one seemed dedicated to frogs. Well....there are a lot of frogs in the rice paddies!
A traditional summer outfit for the guys in a parade.
Above: Some of the floats are wide as well. When they come to a turn, the edge pieces move inward to narrow out the float. Those who are riding the float are fine where they are. Everything is designed to just fold in around the folks on the float.
Above: One of the floats that have had their top piece collapsed to get under the traffic signal.
I didn't get the peak of height for this one. The float before it had gotten a little stuck in the lowering process. So this one was already down when it came to us. But even with the float collapsed, there is still a lot of detail.
By the time the parade got to us, most of the adult pullers were pretty well sauced. There was even a "beer runner" for some of the floats to bring out some fresh drinks as they went by.
The last float of the day. Each float has a different theme. There is really no rhyme or reason to the themes. Just whatever the community agreed to. Some might center around a Shrine, if the Shrine plays a big part in their area. This one seemed dedicated to frogs. Well....there are a lot of frogs in the rice paddies!So that was last weekend. This week has been rather rainy and put a little damper on some of the sight seeing. But don't worry we got out. Hopefully this weekend we can get out as well. Let me rephrase that. We WILL get out! Just not sure if the sun will be out or not, but it's all good!
