8th August - Sakaide Festival

Today was the Sakaide festival so I met up with Chris and the guys from Tokyo Orientation. Before the festival started we were treated to free beer and got many different looks from the japanese crowd considering foreigners have only been allowed to part very recently. The festival involved carrying a 2 ton shrine with about 30-40 other people a couple of miles to meet up with 10 other teams who were doing the same. It was hard work considering we had to go slow and low in some areas to avoid telegraph wires or in some areas we had to turn the shrine around to get through the tight streets. When we finally got to the meeting ground we were allowed a little rest and some ice cream and then we had to perform a lifting dance act with the shrine which really took the wind out of me, but It was all good fun. I managed to chat with so many different Japanese people who were in such good moods and the whole day was just great.

When the main event had finished we had to carry the shrine back to the starting point (which seemed to take 5 times longer than the original journey, most likely as a lot of people had probably given up by that point) When we got back we were treated to more beer and loads of udon and sushi which was definitely needed at that moment.