Music Festival

 Leaving the other art class students after having lunch with them, I found the area full of tents where small groups were preforming. A sign said that it was a festival of choral music. Some of the groups were very good and I stopped to listen for long periods. The group of children in the above picture was the largest group that I saw.

 This group was excellent. They were playing jazz and reminded me a bit of Brubeck, may he rest in peace in music heaven.

 This was the smallest group. Just a soloist accompanied by a guitar. She had a very pleasant voice.

 This young lady was trying to get people to enter the game center behind her.

 Clis Road is the stem of a long t-shaped shopping arcade. It is also the best way to get to the station from the area where I have art classes.

I am not sure who this is supposed to be, but the kids were all excited about the character and were having their pictures taken with it.

Another festival

 I started walking down the shopping arcade in downtown Sendai and immediately ran into a festival. The object in the back is an Omikoshi, which is supposed to be a temporary home for the god as the festival goers take him or her around the area.

 Here is a little bit better picture of it. The long bars sticking out in front and behind are use to carry the Omikoshi.

 Looking back after I passed, I could see lots of people.

 This little shrine is nestled in between the stores and is home to a god who is supposed to bring his worshipers good business. Notice all the things laid out on the table in front of the shrine. These are offerings of food and drink.

 This banner contains the name of the shrine that is sponsoring the festival.

I was thirsty and wanted a sweet so I stopped at a Starbucks and had coffee and a cookie.

After the festival and lunch with my art class

 Walking along the levee, I found a young boy catching bugs. The grade school curriculum in Japan includes a lot of study of insects, so the children develop a deep interest in them. They catch them in nets and then take them home and keep them as pets. There are even stores that sell some of the more interesting ones, often for large amounts of money.

 As I went by, the local shrine was still wearing its festival decorations.

 The flat area nearby where the festival actually takes place was buzzing with activity as the tends and equipment were removed.

 The reason I was out was that I had an art class that day. After class, as usual most of us went out for lunch. On this day we went to an Italian restaurant that we sometimes go to. It is the most expensive of our usual places, 1000 yen for soup, salad, pasta and a couple of pieces of hot, fantastically delicious bread. There are 10 people, nine students and Wakamatsu Sensei, the teacher.

In the alcove on the wall, there was a very interesting mask which apparently came from Venice.

FIreworks at the local shrine's festival

 One of the reasons my daughter and granddaughter visited when they did was to see the fireworks at the local shrine. The display is the highpoint of the river festival, which traditionally was to ask the river gods to be nice to people during the next year - no floods, for example. One traditional part of festivals associated with water is the release of lanterns. In the past lanterns were let in the river by representatives of the families and represented the souls of the departed. The lanterns contained a candle and they were allowed to float down the river to the sea. However, this caused a lot of fires along the river banks, so now they are only allowed to go a few hundred meters down river before they are stopped by a rope and collected.

 The fireworks display was much better than I expected.

 My camera has a fireworks setting but it was dark so I could not use it.

 Not using the setting resulted in 'artistic' pictures like this.

At a flat area near the bridge and more or less in front of the shrine, they have a traditional festival with live music and dancing on a raised platform and lots of booths selling food, beer, and things for the kids. The music is provided by flutes and drums and has a very driving beat. I enjoy it, but the area is really crowded. We decided not to go there this year, considering the fireworks display to be sufficient. Tomone, my granddaughter really like it. If you are interested in the festival part, last year I took a bunch of pictures and placed them on this blog, so just go back to last August, around the middle of the month, and you will find them.

Aoba Matsuri

 Here are some more pictures of the dancers.

 I left the building while the dancing was still going on and started toward the subway station.

 One of the buildings that I passed has a large space built into the first floor. It was filled with dancers from a different group.

 This wagon was set up as an outdoor stage. I was tempted to return to downtown Sendai in the evening to see the actual festival but decided against it. I was still tired from having the flu during the previous week and there would be so many people that I would not be able to see much anyway. Maybe if I still drank, I might have gone in order to sample the sake that would be freely flowing.

At one intersection I found this group of cute little kids, who were going someplace to dance.

 Almost home I discovered that they were actually beginning to repair the road at the end of the bridge. There has been a huge bump and a deep dip at the corner since the road buckled during the earthquake.

Aoba Matsuri continued

 I went to lunch with the teacher and other students in my art class and then some of us students went to an art exhibit in Mediatek, a large public building that houses art galleries, a library, rental space and other stuff. The exhibit was reasonably good but, when we came down the elevator, the first thing I saw on the first floor was these two women.

 They were part of a festival dance group that was performing in the large open space.

 Fans are a frequent part of festival dancing.

 There were a lot of individual performances inter-spaced with larger group dances.

The music that goes with a festival, a matsuri, features drums and flutes and has a very energetic, driving rhythm, the kind that makes you move whether you want to or not.

Aoba Matsuri

 Here is another picture of the intersection at the bridge. They have flatten out all of the places that rose up or sank during the quakes.

 On my way downtown to my art lesson, I noticed that they were apparently starting work on the riverside again. However, a couple days later I passed by and everything was gone, including the portable toilet. The work crew must have used the space to get organized.

 When I got downtown, I found that the preparations for the evening Aoba Matsuri, aoba is a place name and matsuri means festival were in full swing. These two floats were waiting on a side street.

 This road is divided with a wide garden area with trees in the middle. This gate had been set up at the entrance to the space between the lanes.

 When I had almost reached the building where I have my art lessons, I discovered this group of people. It was  a wedding party going to the wedding hall that is across the street. I wonder what they would have done it it was raining?

At noon, after my lesson was over, I discovered costumed dance groups waiting along the sidewalk.

More on the festival

 Right in the middle of the picture you can see one of the most important places during a festival. It is the beer stand, the cups are white on top and blue on the bottom.

 A main feature of the festival is little paper boats that hold a candle are represent the people who have died. In some festivals the relatives place the boat and candle in the water, but here the festival committee does it, so there is no one to one correspondence. The boats are of many different colors so the river is truly beautiful.

 People sit along the edge of the levee-top walkway so that they can get a good view of the fireworks.

 This shows more food and beer stalls. I did not stay around to see the fireworks, but instead went home.

 The next morning I went out for an early walk and found the site almost completely cleaned up. All of the trash was gone, the tents were being taken down, and by noon there would be no sign of the festival. One interesting point is that the tent in the foreground belongs to a different shrine from completely separate sect of Shinto. Generally Shinto and Buddhists sects do not compete but they all tend to cooperate.

The little paper boats have been collected the festival committee was burning them in a small bonfire.

Summer Festival

 My camera is not very good so you will have to excuse the arty pictures. The orange lights are at the festival.

 This is a rope that is stretched across the river to keep the floating candles from going downstream and starting a fire.

 The area in front of the bandstand is now full of tents where they are selling food, toys, and souvenirs.

 This is the view into the shrine for the river god. On the left, they are serving sake, rice wine, to people.

 On the grandstand a group was playing traditional festival music, drums and flutes with a driving beat.

You can see that there are quite a few people here, even though it is early. Later when the fireworks start, there will be even more.