nebuta

The Ohta's gave me a ride from their lovely home in Towada to the Misawa train station. We stopped at the Towada Crafts centre where I saw the making of obis and other cloth items with traditional looms. Even got a demonstration, very nifty.

We said our goodbyes at Misawa Station. Usually there are amenities around major train stations... not here. The sticks. I found one ramen restaurant after quite a bit of searching. With a heavy backpack, it was a welcome rest.

Took the train back to Aomori, found Mrs. Ikoh again, gave her some souvenirs from Lake Towada. I managed to get the last train before the Nebuta Festival started. This festival is huge, everybody from Japan seems to descend on Aomori to see it. There's a good reason. The atmosphere was electric, dancers, drummers and flute-players performing almost continually. The floats are just incredible lit up at night, and they're all powered by people pulling them.






I'm so glad I didn't have my backpack because it was difficult enough to move around. I walked around the entire parade course, saw the floats, got some festival food. It really was an amazing time, and so surreal.

At 10pm I grabbed my pack from the Ikoh's, gave them a bottle of icewine from my pack, and headed for the station. I was 45 minutes early for the train, but knowing festival time, I knew there would be a lineup. And there was. By the time the train rolled in (the same old crummy one) the crowd was huge and it looked like many people wouldn't get a seat. The doors opened, and the stampeding crowd made its way onto the train. I managed to get a seat, but many people didn't. The 'reserved section' with it's AC and large seats were fine, but for those of us cheapskates on the Unreserved cars, it was hot, packed, and just not very pleasant.

So the train lurched off back to Hokkaido, and with all the passengers, the inside of Cattle Class started to get very uncomfortable. The old ladies sat in front of me said they were having trouble breathing 2 hours into the trip. Children started crying. The heat was really getting unbearable. I had about 8 free fans that I was given, so I started handing them out to people. When we finally finally arrived in Hakodate, we couldn't see out the windows because they were so steamed up. About half the people got off, so everybody could have a seat, and some people had two seats to themselves. And then the nice train men decide to turn on the AC. AFTER half of the longsuffering passengers had gotten off! Why they didn't turn it on before was just bewildering.

I arrived home, but didn't sleep. I unpacked, and, like a kid at Christmas, took my beautiful new bicycle for a test ride. I rode south to taiko practice, a good 4 hour round trip. But it was just so exhilerating to be on two wheels again!!