Local Festival!

A couple weeks ago, my town had a little festival. It was wonderful! The festival was celebrating the shrine that is just down the street from me.

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Shop owners came and set up some little tents. To the left, outside the shot, is the Family Mart, a convenience store, but so much more than a convenience store. In japan, you can pay bills, buy a few essential clothing items, grab some good lunch/dinner, make copies, buy manga and even buy concert tickets for local shows. Most nights I end up hanging around there. My students and their parents usually stop in too, so I get to see them outside of school.


Each of these tent shops sells some deliciously unhealthy food item. Usually on a stick and dipped in something.


This guy is skillfully turning Tako Yaki. These are little balls of really scrumptious breading with a piece of octopus stuffed inside. I'm actually not a huge fan, the texture of octopus tentacles really throws me off. But I have had some that were amazing. The kids love them!


I didn't get to try these things, but I really wanted to. They were basically a homemade sort of tortilla with some veggies and maybe some kind of meat tossed inside. Then she rolls them up around a stick. After cooling a bit, she drizzles some kind of sauce and I think a little mayo on it.


They also had a couple straight up candy shops. Japanese candy is, I think in general, a little less sweet than American candy. Consequently I LOVE japanese candy. Its just enough to tickle your tongue but not so sweet you feel guilty.


For 500 yen, I got a huge bag of these sweet fries. Basically they were cold french fries that were sautéed, so to speak, in sugar. The taste was really pretty interesting, but I could only eat a handful from the bag. I could feel my teeth rotting!


There were also game tents. This was a game where you paid a couple hundred yen and you got a small ring with a thin piece of paper to use as a net. Your objective is to scoop the fish into a bowl, you get to keep what you can catch before the paper soaks through and tears.


In the back of the strip were a few tents selling farming equipment and knives and such.


There were some really cool knives and stuff there, some looked to have been handmade! This mama was working these guys over to buy some kind of scythe thing.


I never actually got to see what has happening with the shrine, but it no doubt involved a bunch of guys carrying a heavy portable shrine and singing and what not. I love that the japanese, young and old, are very aware of their culture and history!