Kinsai! Minsai! Odorinsai! 2014

A view of the festival from our apartment.

Today there was a dance matsuri (festival) held in Chizu, called Kinsai! Minsai! Odorinsai! (Come! See! Dance!). The festival started at 1pm, but we could hear and see them setting up all morning from our apartment, since we're so high up.

We went down to the festival around 2pm and wandered around the food stalls. There was a lot of good stuff! Yana got a chocolate vanilla soft cream, Justin got a deer burger, a lemon cream taiyaki, and takoyaki. I finally got my kakigori, shaved ice with flavoured syrup. It was huge! Well worth Y300.

I also ran in to a few of my students and their parents! They all really loved seeing Yana, she's quite the celebrity.

Around 2:30 there was a sort of opening ceremony dance, where a bunch of dance teams gathered on the street and danced together, with flags waving overhead. They use these wooden noisemakers (I'm sure there's a more wonderful name for them in Japanese) in their dances, so some people were wandering around encouraging the kids and onlookers to join in. A girl approached us and handed them to Yana, who was too shy to do anything.

After the opening dance, we noticed many people gathering around a parking lot, so we went there too. Shortly after the dances began, starting with a group of 6 year olds! The costumes, music, and choreography were really amazing for all the dancers. We watched for a while, but eventually Yana wanted to go home. On the way home I got her a rare cheese cream taiyaki and Justin got two grilled meat sticks. I also bought two of the wooden noisemakers as souvenirs.

Unfortunately we realized once we got home that the really cool stuff happened after dark! I guess having all the kids/unofficial teams during the day makes sense. In the evening there were lots of amazing dancers and they even started ending each dance with a blast of fireworks! Although we couldn't see the dancers too well, the view from our apartment was alright and we could hear the music quite loudly as well.

We decided that we'll just have to stay another year so we can go at night next year!