Akita Kanto Festival 2013 - Part 2

Here's were the action begins! The Kanto Festival was awesome! Amazing how they were able to balance the bamboo poles (kantos), some weighing over 100lbs! I think my favorite part was watching the groups of kids with their smaller kantos. It did get a little scary when some of the tall ones were getting tangled up or swaying toward/above us, a few fell, but that's what the cables stretched above the streets were for. They kept the kantos from crashing to the ground if they fell to the side. Seemed like the candles went out pretty much instantly when they started to fall, so the risk of getting burned wasn't very high.

Be sure to check out the video toward the end!

The parade started out with a procession of groups carrying their kantos. Once everyone got into place there was a signal (chanting and a flute I think) and then they raised up the kantos and the show began! After 20-30 minutes they would lower them down and move on and we'd have new groups in front of us. As I said in Part 1, the area for the parade is about 1km (0.6mi) long, but there is an island down the center of the street and they are on both sides. The participants are wearing the traditional outfit for this festival.

Almost everyone was very excited to see
non-Japanese peopleand even more excited that we were 
participating, we gave lots of high fives!

Probably the smallest kanto we saw, itty bitty!

Girls played the taiko drums and flutes.

The boy behind us is doing a really good job!

Some of these girls couldn't stop watching Keenan,
but when he'd catch them looking they'd get embarrassed, so cute!

Getting ready to raise these up.

View down the street.

View in opposite direction.

These are examples different methods of balancing the kantos...aaaamazing!

 

They keep adding extensions onto the poles,
these were crazy tall!

Pretty much looking straight up.

I took a few short video clips and compiled them into one. It shows some drum playing, the kanto's being balanced at their lower height, several smaller kantos crashing down, a kanto being raised up, and 3 very tall kanto's touching yet somehow not getting tangled or falling down!  

Click here for video!

This gives a little bit of perspective of
how big the lanterns actually are...

Yup, I got to hold one!
This was just a little one and I thought it was heavy
and hard to balance just to hold it straight!

Keenan was just about to get to hold one, but they ran out of time. He was sad :( But said he was happy I got to do it.

gGabbing a last minute snack before
heading back to the bus...beef on a stick.

Food vendors.

A spiraled fried potato.

Up next: The Nebuta Festival...yup that's right, 2 out of the "3 greatest festivals" in 3 days!