Nada Kenka Matsuri

Only the largest fighting festival in Japan! And we're lucky enough that it's in our prefecture. There were about 6 shrines, hundreds of guys to haul them, hundreds [thousands?] of spectators, and most importantly, dozens of food stalls! Oh, and every last one of those hundreds of haulers were wearing... nada. Well, that's a big of an exaggeration. But they were wearing the traditional Japanese loincloth, so you do see a lot of cheekiness.

We got there around noon, wandered around, watched the shrines jostle and dance before entering the grounds. Mom and I were caught up in one of the rushes, but were pulled out. Hooray for not getting smooshed! After a few hours, we were getting a bit tired and impatient. I'd forgotten that no matter what the start time is, Japan is more about the build-up than about the pay-off. So we left before any shrines actually smashed into each other.

This was a great first outing for the folks. There was lots of delicious street food, plenty of action, drunken Japanese [really, if you go to Japan and only see sober Japanese, you are really missing a big chunk of Japan!], traditional costumes, and of course, lots of train travel.