Kakunodate Festival

This past Thursday I was invited by some friends to go to the Kakunodate Festival.  It is in an old samurai town about an hour and half from Akita International University.  Kakunodate has been callled a "little Kyoto" as its appearance and samurai district give it a similar feeling.  The festival itself takes place for three days, and the displays include massive wooden Mukashi, these are in the pictures above.  There are various Mukashi that hold drummers, fan dancers, and warriors as well as samurai figures decorating the top platforms.  The Mukashi are pulled with massive ropes and pushed by a large team of people.  At certain points, they smash into one another over and over!  At other points the Mukashi are tilted upwards into the sky and pulled against each other in a sacred competition to honor the gods with the sweat of the warriors, and the competition can last for hours.  It is hard to describe with words, but the amount of strength and the scale of the event was amazing.  The friends I went with are all graduate students at AIU working to complete a program so that they can become Japanese teachers.  They all were so kind in taking me and I am so grateful for getting the chance to go with them.

I also recently took a bike tour of the surrounding area!  I am so glad that I was able to bring a bike with me as it has been very fun getting out into the countryside and covering so much ground so quickly!  I have really been impressed with the difference a road bike makes when biking on the road.  I suppose that is why it is designed for and aptly named after a road.  In any case, I have found a large loop that goes out into some small rice farming communities and follows a large river.  It is quite beautiful.  I have put some pictures of a few resting spots above.  The rice fields, tanbo, are so peaceful to ride by and there are many small paved roads that wind up into the surrounding forested hills.  I usually take a long ride two times a week and venture out into uncharted territory!  The houses here are beautiful.  Many if not most have ornate and well kept gardens and many house are beautifully wrapped with stone or wooden walls surrounding them.  I really enjoy riding through the farming communities as the atmosphere is so calming.  It is also very eye opening to think about the amount of hard labor and the life's work that goes into caring for a single rice field.

There is a unique and subtle balance that exists here, and it truly is beautiful.

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