Summer festivals

Went to an awesome festival last Sunday, which included a huge mikoshi parade.  Went with one of my housemates and a Japanese friend of ours.  We walked around, looked at some booths, got food and some snow cones.  Walked over to the main road as the parade was starting- it was amazing!  Group after group of people carrying mikoshi after mikoshi, for as far as i could see all down the road through the city.  We stood and watched a few go by before walking up the street to see further down the parade.  There was one group that was stopped while waiting for the group in front of them to get ahead a little.  They had someone holding a sign in front of their mikoshi stating that it had been around since 1746.  I thought that was pretty amazing so i stopped to take a picture.  As i did, one of the men in the group waved me over and insisted that i have a try at carrying it with them!  I was stoked, since when we had been watching the parade before i mentioned how it looked like fun and how i wanted to try carrying one.  Luckily i got my chance! 

It was a lot heavier that i thought it would be!  And with me being about the same height as the men carrying it, i had quite a bit of the weight on my shoulder, whereas a lot of the women who were "carrying" it had it a good couple inches off their shoulders.  It was still a lot of fun though, and while i cut out after about 10 minutes to do some more looking around, we caught up with them near the end of the parade and i got to carry it again for another 20 minutes or so, until the very end.  Everyone got drinks, and then a lot of the people started talking to me afterward too, and telling me i should come back and do it again with them next year.  :D  I would definitely consider it, despite my shoulders still being bruised and super sore 3 days later!  Seriously, when i touch my shoulders even slightly it feels like a sunburn, and lifting and moving my arms around hurts too.  The muscles in my neck and back are pretty achy as well- a good workout i guess!

Made a video, which includes some pictures and video i took that day.

And just as a bonus- since my sister sent me the link to this today- cute baby video!

Isn't my nephew the cutest?  :3