With the public health conundrum is the last few years, the usual neighbourhood festivals have been cancelled including our small Tsuchida area event, which is usually a wee bit bigger and held at the elementary school. It’s significant to us as this is where I first met Ryoko’s parents who were helping out selling yakitori. Ryoko bought me my own yukata summer kimono for the event.
Of course, in Japan there are many sizes and traditions with the summertime festivals from small neighbourhood gatherings to epic shrine carrying and fire burning and fireworks.
In this case, in mid-July, 2022, at a small community centre right by our house, the neighbours did their best efforts to do a small and safe gathering which is especially geared towards the kiddos.
There was a sudden rain storm, a band which were doing their best (arena rock and the obligatory country roads”), some young ladies in kimono, fellas in their cool t-shirts, an energetic ballon-making lady, some older gents happy to see me settling into the neighborhood, many people remarking about Ichiro’s adorableness.
Yes, temp checks and masks and you pay a ticket price with then gives you credit at each of the stands so we came home with a buncha extra popcorn we didn’t need/want but ya gotta use your chits.
My dear mother-in-law helped out at one of the stands with some kind of fishing game as well as helped lead the o-bon dance.
Note: Recently dug out a “ruggedized” Olympus camera from wife’s stash, found a cord and a memory chip and put it back into service >> Lots of onboard effects and variations in settings and importantly allows me to go out and document life without my fully functional pocket robot of distractions
Did Ichi dig the parking lot scene before the show?
He was hoping to set up to sell grilled cheese sandwiches, maybe next time. Papa was just disappointed those were “regular balloons”