Sept. 15th 2013 Festival Day Part 1

Been out and about the last few days. Friday, I headed over to the Walmart (Seiyu) to buy a new fan as our old one kicked the bucket! As summer is ending they were on sale so I was able to pick one up reasonably priced enough! I picked up a few other things as well, I needed some more baby powder but haven't been able to find any in the pharmacies so I checked at Walmart in the diaper section and they had little round  plastic jars of powder.  I assumed there would be a powder puff in the jar but nope.. just powder.  Guess  I'll have to see if the puffs are sold separately, in the mean time I'll just fling powder at myself!
On the way home I stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken. They are all over the place here but we've never actually eaten at one yet. The fact that they don't have mashed potatoes on the menu has always stopped us. This time though I decided to give it a try. The chicken was good, the cole slaw was good, but not as sweet. The donut shaped biscuit was unimpressive but the desert custard tart was quite nice! All in all, I didn't have to cook dinner and it was alright!
While I was in Kichijoji ,(or Joji town as the cool hip call it), I saw some festival activities being set up and I remembered having read that this weekend was festival weekend and Monday is Respect the Elderly day, a national holiday (how nice is that?!). I determined to get up early the next day and try to catch the parade. I think it's part a religious festival and part secular too, since everything here is intertwined (no separation of church and state stuff here) it's hard to tell where one thing ends sometimes and another begins. The parade carrying the shrine from the temple is obvious, the traveling drums in the truck is less so.
Saturday, I was up and out the door headed to Kichijoji. I first went to the Walmart as there is a large temple across the street. I found a bunch of shrine carrier folks waiting around. The guy in green was telling these ladies to stop playing with the toy dispensing machines and go wait elsewhere! lol!

                                   Almost every person was carrying a matching man bag.

  The split toe shoes were part of the matching outfit, some of the shoes were up past the ankle and a few people had some up to their calves.

 This group had a token Gaijin guy in the bunch....of course he HAD to go in shorts because he doesn't stand out enough already...

After a little speech, everybody clapped and started heading out to somewhere else, I became a stalker and followed them to see where they were headed. Turns out they were going to this other temple a few blocks away.
It reminded me of the Catholic Kermes in Mexico, people were milling about and food stalls were being set up.

                                        
                                        This vender was planning on using a lot of cabbage!

 
The parade began with this guy riding a horse, I like the horses hat, it covers his ears too! (Note the pooper scooper guy in the yellow shirt walking behind the horse)

                                            
                                                     Sign spinners have nothing on this guy!

 

 

 

                                        
                                    Then some older gentlemen come carrying lanterns.

                                    

And then some ladies with lanterns.

 

And then some drums, flute playing and ladies dancing.

 

  
                           And then even bigger lanterns being carried on long poles.
                                    


Finally the shrine is carried to the other temple. It's quite large and heavy and takes many people to carry. There are extra people ready to step in and take turns on the way.

 

After this passed me by I headed back toward my bus stop.  On the way, I saw these cute little girls who allowed me to take their picture. Many folks were out and about in traditional kimonos and festival clothes.

                             
                                     I ran across the drum, flute dancing ladies again too.

By now I was ready to head home and  stopped at Mr. Donut to pick up this bucket of goodness!

I was almost to the bus stop when I heard big drums in the distance so I followed my ears and found the traveling drums!                They were very good!

 

I really did head home after that. Gary and I enjoyed some coffee and donuts and got ready to head to Shibuya as we had a meeting with our Realtor Agent to see a building for the church. That will have to wait for Part 2 though as this blog is already quite long!

To be continued....