Owariasahi Matsuri

October 11th, 2008 was a big day for me. I arrived in Tokyo for the first time in my life and somehow navigated the maps to the Tokyo Game Show on a very small amount of sleep. After that it was constant excitement - playing games, taking pictures, and walking around to the booths. I took the bus back that night and got home around 7 am to pass out on an actual futon.

I woke up on the 12th, the last day of the Owariasahi Matsuri - the festival celebrating the small town that was my Japan home for the four short months I was there. So, exhaustion? THIS IS JAPAN, MOTHERLOVER! You don't have time to sleep because there's too much to do, and you wouldn't want to anyway because you could miss something you'd never see for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, I slept through the parade, but as we were leaving the house at noon the remnants could be heard down the street. My host parents and I could see a glimpse of the action near the Owariasahi tower across the pond, but we continued to where most of the noise was coming from: the baseball field.

The field held the many booths that made up the festival, with the street surrounding it being the primary location of food stands. As we walked by, my host parents mentioned under their breath that food was a lot more expensive on the street than the field, mainly because it was run by connections to the yakuza (Japanese mob). O_O The tents on the field, however, turned out to be mainly activities and goods run by the town. It actually reminded me of my town fair in good ol' Southern Maryland. One of the booths had information on enlisting for the Japanese Self-Defense Force (that's what it looked like, anyway) and I tried on their camouflage clothes to take some pictures. I probably looked like an American soldier was coming to shut them down! >:D We played some games, won some prizes, and headed to another area of the town.

The local tower was open during the festival, and had rooms set up to view flower arrangements and participate in tea ceremony, so I had the chance to try sado tea for the first time. It was... bitter, but not bad. haha Though it does go really well with the confectionery, to be sure. Outside, kids were putting on a show, and walking down a bit further there was a building with more activities and food in the parking lot. I played jun ken po to get a hot dog for half price, and lost 3 times in a row! Eventually they made me pay up, but it looked like my luck might finally turn around when I entered a lottery-type thing to win a Wii or some other cool stuff. It involved spinning a wooden box around in a circle until a colored marble popped out. Well, the person right in front of me ended up winning the Wii. And I got a grocery bag. Great.

It was cool to see the similarities between my town in Japan and my home town in America in how we run local festivals. But it wasn't the last time I'd see a town festival in Japan, and the next time would be... quite different, to say the least.

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