We left Hirosaki and headed for Akita and the Kanto Festival. After arriving, we went and grabbed some dinner before getting dressed in our traditional Japanese wear. A yukata and jikatabi for myself and a yukata and geta for Grace, and we were ready to go!
The Kanto Festival consists of balancing large poles hung with lanterns on your palm, forehead, shoulders, lower back and hips, in order of difficulty. While the poles (kanto) represent the ears and stalks of the rice plant, the lanterns themselves represent bales of rice, an important crop in Tohoku. While these men balance the poles, their drummers and flutists keep rhythm and the people in the crowd shout "Dokkoisho! Dokkoisho!". To these already unstable structures, the men keep feeding more poles under the main pole, making the whole construction taller and more tipsy. Then, to make it even harder, some of them put on single plank sandals (a sandal made like a geta, but instead of 2 small planks, there is one large one in the middle) and balance on the sandals while balancing a pole. Some also get down all the way to the ground, balancing the pole on their back, hip or shoulder. While the men make it look easy, I got a chance to try this. The poles are up to 12 meters (13 yards) tall, with 24-46 lanterns, weighing in at about 50 kilograms (110 pounds). I first tried one of the big poles. While I was able to hold it myself, I couldn't balance it at all by myself. Then I tried one of the small poles, about half the size and weight. This one I was able to balance for about 3 seconds by myself before losing it. This is nearly impossible! I have an incredible amount of respect for the men who pull this off. We got a lot of compliments for our garb, and several groups gave me items from their group, like scarves and fans. I also got invited into the NTT truck who drove me around while I played the big drums.
We met a girl there who looked remarkably like a friend of mine from home. Her name was Roberta, and she told us if we really wanted to see the good show, we should go to the bar/seedy part of town after the parade, and see the offstage performances. We weren't disappointed. Without the powerlines and other overhead obstructions, the heights got higher and the performers more bold, pulling of multiple lay down moves in big groups.
We then wandered home, stopping at a great noodle shop and snapping some shots of funny bar names.
