One of the biggest parts of the Japanese culture is their passion for festivals. Seasonal festivals, city & town festivals, holiday festivals, fertility festivals, you name it and there's a chance they celebrate it in a big way. One year ago today (that's how behind I am on blogs), I attended the Neko Matsuri - or Cat Festival - in Nagoya, Japan. Yes, they celebrate how awesomely cute cats are. They may have this festival in other areas as well, perhaps at other times, but in Owariasahi it seems to be in late September.
Saturday the 27th, I must have been off doing other things because my host parents had gone to the festival and took pictures on their own. They came back and showed me what a fun time they had, so I decided to go with them when they returned the following day.
"Downtown" Owariasahi was only a 5-min. or so drive away from our house, to the last Meiji station on the map. It didn't initially look like a whole lot was going on, but as we approached the main building we saw a huge banner, heard music playing, and saw a large cat statue out front. Inside they were selling replications of the large cat in at least a hundred statues and omiyage of varying sizes and designs. There were also sections for arts and crafts, and I got a temporary cat tattoo on my hand that proved quite difficult to get off later.
As we were walking to the shopping arcade, my host parents told me that in order to fit in I would have to get my face painted like a cat. But, but there were lots of people, especially adults, without any face paint at all! Oh, that didn't matter, I was a foreigner and needed to experience a life's worth of activities in four months. So we found a lady in cat ears to paint my face, and soon enough... I was a cat.
We shopped (and pranced) around the area a bit more, and it seemed like the stores had been cleared out completely and replaced with all cat-stuff. So I got key-chains, cell phone charms, and stickers, but had to leave before I had too much omiyage to carry home.
On our way to play games outside, we finally saw our first (and only that day) REAL cats, in the way of two kittens hiding under a parked car. They were cute but we didn't get to pet them. :/ At the games area, I competed with host mommy Mitsuko-san at scooping small cat figurines out of a tub of water using a paper scoop. I didn't even realize it would break until Mitsuko-san's did, but I still managed to get a few more. Then I won a couple more games and got more statues as a prize. Yay!
I had just enough time to wash my face and take another couple last-minute pictures, before running to catch the train to meet friends for my next adventure. I was so busy in Japan!
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