Japan

This morning I had the feeling that a cold is coming up, but it might also be the aftermath from last night, which was very short.

So I wanted to have a relaxed day somewhere and went Geocaching in Omiya. The weather was fantastic. And still there are some leaves on the trees remaining, which are now beautifully coloured.

Three years ago I didn´t attend this festival, because the 3rd of december, when the festival is held was a monday. Mondays usually involve work. But this time everything seemed to fit.
We finished very early that day (15:30) and this gave me enough time, to head back to hotel on my beloved mama bike t get a quick rinse at the Onsen and then heading towards the station.
I was supposed to meet some of my colleagues there, but somehow we missed each other. Didn´t matter, since I rather spend my time alone somewhere than in a group with colleagues. Don´t get me wrong, I love company, but I want to have people around, whom I like, not with whom I work with. Actually there are some colleagues which I would have loved to take on tour with me, but those guys were not here at the time.

However, I arrived in Chichibu. At the time I was still looking for AJ, who should have been to the same festival, but when i stepped outside of the station, there were more people than I would have ever expected. Soon I realised that there are even an uncountable number of foreigners on the streets. No chance to find her anyway. So I gave up.

For the festival I had the same strategy as always in japan: Follow the crowd and if you don´t like what you see turn left or right. It worked again. After a couple of minutes I witnessed one of the floats being prepared for the parade. When they started to move this colossus the drums started to play and the people began shouting. Just like a japanese festival I thought ;-)

I further followed the stream of people, when I realised that my stream was outnumbered by the people coming my direction. I love being different, so I continued my way. The street was getting more and more crowded and to both sides of the streets food was offered. Not always japanese style as the following picture shows. A british guy selling turkish Kebap at the chichibu night festival in Japan. Later I found several more Kebeap places in chichibu. Maybe these guys were the japanese Kebapmafia.

After sighting another float, I decided to turn into the next street, as there was more food to come. The next street turned out to be a very small one to my left side. Less crowded and it appeared that the people living n this street had their own private festival. The offered homemade soup, their handcrafted stuff and they all seemed to have their own party. When I was passing by a rice shop I stopped for a seccond, because in there were a couple of gyus enjoying themselves. One was playing the guitar another the flute and two other gyus were singing and dancing. I watched them a couple of blinks. And then the wanted me to come in and join them. Alright. This was the best decission during this evening, to join their party.
I played some songs for them as well, although I didn´t play the guitar at home for a long time. However, they appreciated my attempt to rock the street. It turned out that the rice owner was Haiku-Poet while another one was a painter who lives part time in Paris. Later on their wifes joined as well and was just great to talk to these guys. The have known each other for more than 37 years. With my little japanese and their pretty good english and french, we managed to have a really good time.

Much later, one of them was distracted by some people outside the shop starring through the window. My colleagues. The picked up another two seventeen year old boys (from denmark and switzerland) and one of them saw me sitting inside the rice shop drinking wine and chatting. They were invited as well and so we had a pretty awesome time.
Eventually, when we left the shop, we went ffurther down the road to the place the rice shop owner recommended to me to watch the fireworks. It was amazing. I have never ever seen such a deeply moving atmosphere during a firework. Imagine hundreds of people on the street, chatting, singing, being normal. Then suddenly the first effect in the sky followed by absolute silence on the street. Everybody stopped just watching towards the sky.