First of my Lasts

Last night marked what will probably be my last matsuri in Japan. I love Japanese festivals- the bizarre food stalls, game booths, costumes, energy and of course people and yesterday's festival was no exception.

This was, of course, the Himeji Yukata Festival which I reported on last year. Himeji was more packed with people than I have ever seen it before. What would normally be a five minute strole along the shopping arcade expanded into a 30 minute exercise in winding through throngs of yukata clad women and men in their jinbe's. The big difference between this year and last was the absense of the bosozoku, or motorcycle gangs. Somebody said they showed up late at night, but I didn't see them at all.

My preparation for the matsuri really started a few weeks ago, when I began browsing through the racks of yukata for one I liked. The start of summer sees shops putting out huge racks of yukata, ranging in price from 2000 yen to 30000 yen or more for a designer one. I must have looked through hundreds of yukatas before I found mine on Thursday, just in time for the weekend! I started to get ready around three, and was fortunate enough to have an entire team of people helping me to get ready. Lexi helped me put on the yukata and tie the obi, or big poofy belt, and this awesome girl Julie (visiting from the inaka of Japan) did my hair. Then later my friends Chiaki and Sue helped me retie my yukata when it started to slip down. (The initial fear for people wearing yukata for the first time is for it to open up. I guess there are things called "yukata slips", but of course I didn't have one. So if my yukata happened to fall apart, I'd be standing in the street in my underwear and a tank top... Not a pleasant experience I'd imagine!) Everyone in the building got ready together, had a few snacks on the deck, and then we all got separated trying to make it downtown.

I wandered around the matsuri at first with Chelsea, Michelle, and Julie. Then we ran into Maya and her boyfriend Ryan. Soon afterwards I found Jon Ho, who is one of my favorite people in Himeji, and we went and saw these cool breakdancers he met last week perform on stage. In short, I just ended up jumping between people to wander around with. Rather than go on at length, I'll just summarize the night with a few pictures.

Right- A variation on the goldfish game. Kids try to catch baby quails. If they win, they get to keep the bird. Unfortunately, I think a lot of baby birds are killed in the process of trying to catch them. And probably many more are killed once the kids get them home. I thought these boys were adorable though. They were so happy with their new chicks!

Running into Karen's students on miyukidori. These girls are wearing jinbe, which are loose top and bottom combinations. I want one! They look so comfortable!

Running into Inaoka Sensei and Iizuka Sensei in front of the station. I worked with Inaoka Sensei at Toyotomi, she's an amazing teacher and person. Iizuka Sensei was the director of English education in Himeji but recently switched positions and is now the vice principal at my school. They were coming back from a seminar on English education when I ran into them.

As the festival started to wind down Lexi and I headed over to Tiger and met up with people. Regrettably, Taube, Julian, and the other Shirasagi people were elsewhere. I think most people were at this ramen shop that I didn't quite know how to get to. I wanted to join them, but I was a little worried about wandering through the "red light" district of Himeji on my own, and my feet were killing me. It's now Sunday morning, there's a steady rainfall softening the sounds of cars passing by and driving people indoors. I imagine it's washing away the remnants of yesterday's matsuri, the empty cups and sticky food trays, from the city streets downtown. The thought of never going to another Japanese matsuri is bringing tears to my eyes. It's going to be hard to leave what has become my home.

Waiting for the bus