So, a while ago, we talked a bit about obon holidays. In relation to that, many communities hold bon odori (summer festivals) during summer.
They put up many lanterns...
And they set up a stage.
On the stage, several people dance bon odori in circle. Anyone can join in and dance bon odori around the stage. Even if you don't know how to dance, you can just watch people up on the stage and copy them! It's not hard at all!
Also, as you can see in photos, many people wear yukata to bon odori, which is a casual version of kimono, a traditional Japanese dress. Many people dress up in yukata during summer and go to festivals. It is pretty.. but there is a certain way to put it on, and it is not easy wearing it!
They have many stalls at the festival for food and games, too!
For this game, you scoop out little bouncy balls with a special scooper. The scooper has a round plastic frame, and there is a very thin paper in the middle. This thin paper will break when it gets wet with water, so you need to be very careful and try to scoop out bouncy balls.
For this game, you pick water balloons with a hook. A hook is tied to a string made of tissue paper. You hold this string and try to catch the rubber band tied to each water balloon with the hook. It's hard, because the string made of tissue paper will break when it gets wet with water and the hook will fall off.
For this game, you pick a string and pull it. Then, you get a prize tied in the end of the string. There are so many strings that it's hard to guess which prize you might get!
Yuki wanted to scoop some fish...
It is much like scooping bouncy balls. Only that you are scooping gold fish instead of bouncy balls... Does it sound mean? Yuki's grandma never allowed Yuki's mom to do this when she was little, but Yuki... He likes animals, including fish, and he likes to raise gold fish, so we do this only sometimes. This is a very common game at summer festivals in Japan. We've read that people started doing this as a a game in Japan in 1810!
Yuki actually did not catch any.. but they gave him 5 fish to take home!
We have taken home gold fish that we got from summer festivals in the past, and some of them lived for a couple of years. We were hoping some of them would survive this year, too, but sadly, none of them did... :'( Yuki decided after that that he will not do gold fish scooping anymore, because he realized it is not good for gold fish. We will see if he still feels that way at the festival next year.
In our neighborhood, we always have this summer festival on the last Saturday of August, right before kids go back to school. It was very bitter sweet that we finally had our local summer festival. Summer is over now...!
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