{"id":131,"date":"2003-10-26T11:16:00","date_gmt":"2003-10-26T11:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/?p=131"},"modified":"2003-10-26T11:16:00","modified_gmt":"2003-10-26T11:16:00","slug":"futami-matsuri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/?p=131","title":{"rendered":"Futami Matsuri"},"content":{"rendered":"

At around 2:30 I went down to the station, and met Miss Kageyama. She was game enough to go to the festival with me. I think she just wanted to see a foreigner helping with the mikoshi. Apparently she had a big night last night, with a bit too much beer, but she rallied just fine.<\/p>\n

I was amazed at how many people were at the festival. The place was packed! We went over to watch the mikoshi go by, and right away I saw my friends from the yakitori, sweating big time and carrying a monster mikoshi. They were really struggling, and a couple of times it almost turned over – I can’t imagine the run of bad luck that goes along with that.<\/p>\n

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After the first turn around the temple, one of the guys tapped me on the shoulder and handed me his happi – a gown worn by the people that lift the mikoshi. It’s not strictly enforced, though, and I saw other people helping in casual clothes. I put it on, and then I was committed. <\/p>\n

We lifted the giant shrine and walked along. Thankfully, there weren’t too many advanced manuevers, especially since I couldn’t understand the instructions being shouted at everyone. We made a long trip down the back of the temple, and then sat the mikoshi down. I was sweating big time, and I hadn’t even taken it all the way around the temple. We sat and waited for some of the others to go by, and in the meantime, I introduced Miss Kageyama to everyone. Some people saw my outfit and walked up to take pictures with me. One guy even poured me a beer. <\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

It became apparent that we were going to be there a while, so I returned my happi so that I didn’t forget and walk off with it. We mingled with the crowd a little, and then I saw Melanie and went over to introduce her to Miss Kageyama. Miss Kageyama had really wanted to meet Melanie to put a face to her name. We talked for a little while, and Miss Kageyama and I decided to do something about our appetites. There were tons of snack foods around, but we felt like something a little more substantial, so we decided to try out the new okonomiyaki restaurant near my house. <\/p>\n

On the way, I popped in on the shaved ice lady, who nowadays is selling takoyaki out of her booth, since the weather has cooled considerably. I hadn’t seen her in a long time, and so we talked briefly, and then when she saw Miss Kageyama, they talked for a long time. I could only catch a bit, but they covered a lot of topics. Afterwards, she gave us each a hot package of takoyaki to take home. We thanked her profusely, and then I diverted back to my apartment to stick them in the fridge. <\/p>\n

The okonomiyaki restuarant was packed, and we had to wait about 15 minutes for a table. That’s always a good sign, and as it turned out, the food was excellent. We ate shrimp and pork okonomiyaki, and we were surrounded by hungry people drinking beer and having a good time. The atmosphere was busy and loud. It kind of reminded me of a local pizza place in the U.S. <\/p>\n

After an excellent meal, we made the long walk back to Higashi Futami station, and Miss Kageyama took the long train trip home – it’s about 30 minutes back to her place from that station. An exhausting day, but it was a lot of fun to try something new and see some friendly folks! Back to work tomorrow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At around 2:30 I went down to the station, and met Miss Kageyama. She was game enough to go to the festival with me. I think she just wanted to see a foreigner helping with the mikoshi. Apparently she had a big night last night, with a bit too much beer, but she rallied just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOpl7-27","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}