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focalintentThe next stop on our trip was going to be Omihachiman for a festival that our friend Esther was involved in. Our day started out with breakfast, and grabbing a train from Osaka to Kyoto. At Kyoto Station we dropped our luggage off in lockers, met up with some of esther's friends, and jumped the train to Omihachiman.
We arrive at the station in Omihachiman and hopped a bus to take us to the festival site. I wasn't entirely clear on everything this festival involved, for many reasons, but I think I began to get my first hint when we got off the bus. We were quickly rushed out of the street by a giant crowd being led by this:
a giant float, being carried on the backs of drunken (or soon to be drunken) folks. Each year, for this festival, the various parts of the town build floats representing their section of town. These floats are then carried around in a parade style through the day's celebration. Floats, parades, etc... I'm familiar with all of that courtesy of living in SF. Right? Wrong. See, they don't merely march these floats around. They do mighty battle with them - charging each other head on and locking horns, so to speak:
Of course, as often happens when drunken crews of people charge each other with multi-hundred pound floats, the floats would get locked, and stuck together. This would lead to each team rocking their floats back and forth, to try to get them unstuck, and hopefully have their float be the one left standing.
We wandered around, watching battles (including floats manned by children! Yes, those mini-floats fought as well - sometimes even taking on the adult floats!). We finally met up with Esther and her team, watching a battle they were in for a bit. Somehow, the conversation ended up me cracking some comment about loving the idea of taking part in manning one of these floats for a battle and next thing I knew, esther was taking me back to her float where one of the men there gave me an extra jacket putting me on their 'team', effectively!
Alas, before my first battle Esther and I were whisked away, taken into a back room of the shrine the festival was dedicated to where we were introduced to the old men of the festival, who gave us sake, and chatted Esther up in Japanese. Finally we made our way back outside where I was given a chance to take part in a battle of my own.
It was fun - but holy shit are those things heavy. I took part in two battles, spinning the float around, charging the other float, trying to rock our float and unlock it from our victims. After the second fight, the sun was starting to set, and so we had to bring the float back to its garage for some fixing up before the evening's festivities. On our way out of the shrine, we stopped for a pair of small battles against a children's float. Those children our vicious! Our float was crushed not once, but twice by those kids ;)
After dropping the float off, we went off to get dinner, and relax a bit before coming back for the evening's festivities. See, it's not just battles and charging. No, it's also drinking, and spinning, and burning!
Once repaired from the day's combat, we shouldered the float again, taking our place in line outside the shrine. There was much drinking, and spinning the float around in circles while various people took turns jumping on top of the float and shouting at the crowd. We went into the shrine with our float, where more drinking and spinning ensued, as well as an impromptu battle (that may have been a bad idea), before our float was finally set on the ground and light on fire.
Fire, sweet fire. There is nothing like ending a day of fighting and drinking and spinning and hauling and fighting and spinning with setting things on fire. As our float burned itself into embers, Esther, Yulia and I made our way back to the train station and headed back to Kyoto for another day and more adventures.
We arrive at the station in Omihachiman and hopped a bus to take us to the festival site. I wasn't entirely clear on everything this festival involved, for many reasons, but I think I began to get my first hint when we got off the bus. We were quickly rushed out of the street by a giant crowd being led by this:
a giant float, being carried on the backs of drunken (or soon to be drunken) folks. Each year, for this festival, the various parts of the town build floats representing their section of town. These floats are then carried around in a parade style through the day's celebration. Floats, parades, etc... I'm familiar with all of that courtesy of living in SF. Right? Wrong. See, they don't merely march these floats around. They do mighty battle with them - charging each other head on and locking horns, so to speak:
Of course, as often happens when drunken crews of people charge each other with multi-hundred pound floats, the floats would get locked, and stuck together. This would lead to each team rocking their floats back and forth, to try to get them unstuck, and hopefully have their float be the one left standing.
We wandered around, watching battles (including floats manned by children! Yes, those mini-floats fought as well - sometimes even taking on the adult floats!). We finally met up with Esther and her team, watching a battle they were in for a bit. Somehow, the conversation ended up me cracking some comment about loving the idea of taking part in manning one of these floats for a battle and next thing I knew, esther was taking me back to her float where one of the men there gave me an extra jacket putting me on their 'team', effectively!
Alas, before my first battle Esther and I were whisked away, taken into a back room of the shrine the festival was dedicated to where we were introduced to the old men of the festival, who gave us sake, and chatted Esther up in Japanese. Finally we made our way back outside where I was given a chance to take part in a battle of my own.
It was fun - but holy shit are those things heavy. I took part in two battles, spinning the float around, charging the other float, trying to rock our float and unlock it from our victims. After the second fight, the sun was starting to set, and so we had to bring the float back to its garage for some fixing up before the evening's festivities. On our way out of the shrine, we stopped for a pair of small battles against a children's float. Those children our vicious! Our float was crushed not once, but twice by those kids ;)
After dropping the float off, we went off to get dinner, and relax a bit before coming back for the evening's festivities. See, it's not just battles and charging. No, it's also drinking, and spinning, and burning!
Once repaired from the day's combat, we shouldered the float again, taking our place in line outside the shrine. There was much drinking, and spinning the float around in circles while various people took turns jumping on top of the float and shouting at the crowd. We went into the shrine with our float, where more drinking and spinning ensued, as well as an impromptu battle (that may have been a bad idea), before our float was finally set on the ground and light on fire.
Fire, sweet fire. There is nothing like ending a day of fighting and drinking and spinning and hauling and fighting and spinning with setting things on fire. As our float burned itself into embers, Esther, Yulia and I made our way back to the train station and headed back to Kyoto for another day and more adventures.
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Date: 2009-04-13 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 07:00 am (UTC)