Festival!

Last night we experienced our first Shrine Festival. It was a feast for the senses! There were a lot of people packed into a small area. Many booths with food, games and souvenirs.


There were parades on and off through the day. Most featured elaborately decorated floats. These were parked on the grounds of the shrine we visited. They were incredible. People were climbing on them, but we couldn't tell how to get into the line.



In the middle of the chaos there was this music and dance thing going on. It was quite solemn and traditional, which made the contrast with the surroundings quite vivid.



There were many food booths. Too bad we had just filled ourselves with scrumptious ramen at a local restaurant!



Many of the locals were dressed in beautiful robes - I think that these are called "Yukata" but most of us would call them Kimono. I am not sure of the difference. Anyway there were women and men, and children in festive colorful robes, walking around buying cheap electronic toys and eating street food!


Of course, we allowed the kids to save dessert for the festival! Aleeza found a crepe booth and she had a banana and chocolate crepe. Benna enjoyed her first ever candy apple! It was pretty good but it led to a feud that lasted for about half an hour.



We had some trouble finding our way home, and wound up hiking to the main bus terminal to get our bearings, only to find that the bus drove right through the sestival area. Oh well - more exercise, just what we needed! We were treated to views of fireworks from the bus windows as we drove back to the Ryokan.

We enjoyed Matsumoto!