As dusk approached, we made our way back across the bridge and looked for a good place to park ourselves for a good view of the night parade.
The lights are still on, but they would go out. One shop keeper wouldn't turn out his lights until his competitor across the street turn off his. We cracked up watching him negotiate with the cops who came to tell him to turn his light off.
The kids were hungry, and this guy had a bench in front of his shop. So, we bought his beef balls for dinner.
Translation (I think): Famous Hida (the area we were in) beef are angus cattle. They take some of the meat, mince it up when cooking it, then put it in the middle of a round pancake. Us Danish call it aebleskiver if it's the apple type balls. In Japan, tako (octopus) balls are common. In Takayama, they use beef in the middle, much like an apricot seed is in the middle.They were pretty good... it was so cold!
The mikoshi are about 3 tiers tall. The lanterns light them up. Those have candles in them! Serious candlelight parade!
People pull them down the streets. There was an ENG photog from China near us, so I got to steal a bit of his light. That is electronic news gathering, or TV for those who are curious.
I was impressed how much you could see from the lanterns on them!
We bought the boys kairou (if I remember correctly) which are the hand warmers. They sat on the street. If Hallie took off her shoes, she could stand on the bench. We'd seen the owner go chew someone out. They just stared at them. Finally I realized that they hadn't understood them. They were Australian Chinese. He obviously thought they were Japanese. So I explained, and they said 'thank you.' Funny, huh?
At the beginning of the parade, the guys pulling and pushing these were still sober.
By the end of the parade, the sake was getting low.
For my little camera, it did pretty well in the low light.
This one has a puppet. We got to watch the puppet shows the next day.
This one had musicians in it. And if you look really closely...
...you'll see kids riding up top on it.
It was a magical type of parade. Very cool to witness an old-fashioned parade!
The mikoshi are about 3 tiers tall. The lanterns light them up. Those have candles in them! Serious candlelight parade!
People pull them down the streets. There was an ENG photog from China near us, so I got to steal a bit of his light. That is electronic news gathering, or TV for those who are curious.
I was impressed how much you could see from the lanterns on them!
We bought the boys kairou (if I remember correctly) which are the hand warmers. They sat on the street. If Hallie took off her shoes, she could stand on the bench. We'd seen the owner go chew someone out. They just stared at them. Finally I realized that they hadn't understood them. They were Australian Chinese. He obviously thought they were Japanese. So I explained, and they said 'thank you.' Funny, huh?
At the beginning of the parade, the guys pulling and pushing these were still sober.
By the end of the parade, the sake was getting low.
For my little camera, it did pretty well in the low light.
This one has a puppet. We got to watch the puppet shows the next day.
This one had musicians in it. And if you look really closely...
...you'll see kids riding up top on it.
It was a magical type of parade. Very cool to witness an old-fashioned parade!
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