Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Daigo Festival and the Carp Bridge

These are pictures from the Daigo street festival and Carp bridge.
The Daigo festival was crazy! These big carts full of people are pulled around these little town's streets. Each cart is a different team and as these teams meet each other while roaming through streets and alley's they will stop and have a drum-off(each cart is loaded with 3-4 drummers sitting inside all playing the same beat). As the drum-off is going on the carts are rocked back and forth as the drummers INSIDE the carts are keeping up the beat. Which ever team goes the longest without messing up the beat wins. These drum-offs last anywhere from 10-15 minutes. That might not seem like a long time, but believe me it is when your job as the supporter of the team is to jump up and down along with the drum beats and clap and yell. The winner of the drum-off is also determined by how loud the supporters and team members cheer and how long they can keep up with the drummers. The team I and some friends joined were winning every drum-off until we met the purple team. The purple team was loaded with the Japanese version of energetic, hopped-up-on-suger, teeny boppers. Needless to say, we lost the lead when these chics rounded our corner. I had a blast though!

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These two pictures are specifically during the last drum off between all the teams. After roaming the streets they all meet up and get in a line. Each carts supporters stand in front of their carts and all teams start drumming at the same time. After about 20-25 minutes of this drum-off the festival is over and somehow everyone knows who won even though no announcer formally declared a winner. The over-all winner was not my team (blue team). Oh well.

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This was some guy on the blue team. His job was to carry around this long poll with a lantern on the very top of it. He did a good job.

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This is the carp bridge. The Japanese have a special day for boys and a seperate special day for girls. Girl's day hasn't happened here yet, but boys day has and these are pictures from the bridge where carps (carps represent boys for some reason)are hung in celebration of the good ol' male race. It was a beautiful day out. Sun shinning and carps blowing in the breeze. You all should really check it out someday.

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These are just two little kids that I saw at the bridge. Pretty sure they're completely adorable. Yes, that really is a little girl eating soup with two sticks. I wouldn't be surprised if she was still in diapers, but she's fully able to eat noodles and water with sticks. Chopsticks are easy to use I know, but come on!
Have you ever seen a cuter little boy? I haven't except for my little cousins, little brother(when he was a baby), and close friends' babies of course.

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