Our first Japanese Festival

Our first weekend after moving into our house we attended a festival.  It was just a few blocks away out the gate.  We walked out the gate Friday night not knowing what to expect.  It was nice to walk and not worry about traffic and parking.  The streets were lined with food vendors.  Not like what we have at our parades....REAL food vendors.  Any and every kind of food.  Noodles,seafood on sticks, sandwiches, fried items, smoothies, covered bananas, covered fruit, weird ice cream, and lots of stuff I had no idea what it was.  I found a spot to sit for the parade and John and the kids went exploring for treats.  The parade was AWESOME!  It goes on in the dark and all of the floats have their own lighting.  There are no cars to pull the floats, instead two big ropes are pulled in front of the float.  About 20-50 people would pull the floats.  Each float was full of kids playing their drums (I don't know the proper name).  It was super cool.  We were mesmerized by them. The kids kept saying how the Japanese parades were tons better than American parades.  I was surprised at that because they don't give out candy at these parades.

The next day there was 3 other parades at the same place so we decided to make a day of it.  We went to the vendors for lunch and then watched the first parade.  It was called the costume parade.  It was like nothing I have seen before and it was nothing like the parade from the night before.  Most of the parade was Japanese boys dressed up as girls and Disney princesses...mostly Elsa and Anna from Frozen.  The highlight was the Sumo wrestlers....Talk about a shock to see!!!  Remember how the roads in Japan are tiny...ya when they stopped to squat and do whatever they were doing...it was right in front of us.  More particularly right in Zak's face.  He could have pinched or slapped a butt cheek!  I was taking pictures thinking this is so Crazy.  Zak was embarrassed, Makelle was staring at the ground and Lantz had his eyes covered with a fan for the entire 5 minutes they were right in front of us!  We decided not to see the other two parades since we were hot and tired and disappointed from that parade.  So we went home to get changed for a ward baptism.  It was nice to support a new convert.  Makelle was extra excited to see the font she would be baptized in.  It was a great way to end the night.  Sumo wrestlers in the morning and baptism at night!