2015-09-05, Nagahama Appare Matsuri

I happened to see that there would be a Yosakoi festival in Nagahama today so I decided that since it's cooled down a little (80s and 90s) I'd go.  It got pretty warm in the afternoon for a couple of hours but the rest of the day was pleasant.  Stacy, a coworker, went with me.  We arrived in Nagahama and found that it would be about an hour before our bus arrived so we decided to walk around town since Stacy hadn't been there before.  We stopped for a little snack, these treats made with differnt kinds of sweet potatoes, to tide us over until we could have some festival food.  And I had to stop in the sesame shop and pick up some sweet sesame crackers.

Then we went into the glassblowing place and walked around the shopping area.  Back to the bus station and onto a bus that took us to the way out of town where we then boarded a shuttle bus to the festival area.  Once there we headed straight for the food since the street performances were over.

Here's an unusual and very delicious option!

Our choices - a chicken 'kebab' sandwich, fried curry seasoned meat on a stick, chopped pork wrapped around rice coated with a sweet/salty sauce on a stick.

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And since that all made us thristy, and it was hot, we then had some kakigori while we watched the semifinals which consisted of about 20 teams.

The other teams danced on the stage but the last team, from Hokkaido, took over the field and got everyone involved.

Then for some reason, a bunch of them stripped down to these red loin clothes...

After the dancing the teams' flag wavers gathered with their giant flags and took turns waving them.

Hot and tired we went to see about the shuttle bus back but decided to wait an hour for the bus that would take us directly to the station.  So we walked around the park which had a great playground, tennis and badmiton courts and an indoor pool.  We were the only people leaving since things were just getting started for the night.

As we walked back across the field we saw a 'sword battle' going on.  Anyone who wanted to could have a soft plastic sword and try to knock balls off each other's arms (they were held on with velcro).  The teams were the 'locals' against those from other towns.

Back at the station we just made the train which was nice because it would have been another 1/2 hour wait for the next one, we biked home and I headed immediately into a cool shower.