Yamaboko Parade

On Sunday morning we met one of Midori's clients and helped out with her English lesson. We chatted and I showed her some pictures I had on the iPad of family and my kitties and she showed us pictures of when she was in high school and did a home stay in CA.

When the lesson was over we headed back to town for the Yamaboko Parade. Yamaboko are 5 meter high floats and there are 11 of them in this parade, each pulled by a group. We saw them parked along the shopping arcades on Saturday and I was able to get some closer pictures. For the parade we ended up on a street corner which gave a pretty good view but was right when they turned the corner so it was hard to get really good shots.

The floats were preceeded by a procession of samurai with Date Masamune and some others on horseback. Interspered were more groups of sparrow dancers, city officials, and the Mikoshi from Aoba temple. A Mikoshi is a portable Shinto shrine and it was carried by people dressed in white who have the same ancestrey as Date Masamune.

One of the Yamaboko had the 7 lucky gods of Japan.

A young boy was carrying a lion's head that would "bite" down on the heads of people sitting along the street. Midori explained it would bring good luck to those people. One very small child was terrified by this and Tristan and I compared it to children sitting on Santa's lap and being scared.

We didn't stay for the whole parade but went over to the park to get some food. I couldn't believe how croweded everything was. It was doubled from the day before so we found a curb to sit on and Midori and Tristan ventured in for different items and brought them out for us to share. Then we headed home to rest awhile before going out to dinner that night.