Hachinohe Sansha Tansai (Festival)- part2

This is the second part of my batch of photos from the Hachinohe Festival which was held last August 1, 2009.

Hachinohe Sansha Taisai (Festival)- part1

One of the floats, the little drummers and the blue devil (sorry but I don't know the name of the float hehehe)



A blue float :-)

BFF (best friends forever hehehe)


The Geisha Float


The old man and the horse with no name

Kids with their flutes


The cute drummers


The teenagers with their custom made flip flops


Another float


These kids are pulling the rope (pretending they can pull the big float).....I don't think I'll let my son wear this kind of hat but they're so cute with these kids :-)


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Hachinohe Sansha Taisai- is a wide and main festival of the town. It is also considered as "Japan's Biggest Float Festival." Sansha means "three shrines" and Taisai means "festival": It is held by three shrines (jinja): Ogami Jinja, Shinra Jinja, and Shinmeigu.

Floats ran through the main streets of the city of Hachinohe, accompanied by people with drums, flutes and loud calls. Twenty seven different floats were used, and they were proudly constructed and decorated by the members of various organizations. The floats were also accompanied by men in samurai costumes on horseback, and Tiger Dancers. Some kids and adults were pulling the ropes to guide the floats on where to go.

We witnessed this event last August 1, 2009, sorry for this late post I was a bit busy lately.....busy with my farm.....farmtown on facebook hehehe LOL.

By the way, Hachinohe is a 30 minute drive from Misawa Air Base.

I will post more pictures from this festival on my next post.

Misawa Tanabata Festival- Part 3 (Street Food and Games)

Look at the outfits of those 2 girls :-) compared with the old guy on the left LOL




The machine on the left is where you get your ticket, and the prize are the stuffed animals/toys



These sodas are not real sodas they are floating devices :-) or floaty??? (whatever!) , you'll definitely get one of these when you buy a ticket for 500 yen, the grand prize is a huge stuffed animal; the machine ticket is the same as above


Catching gold fish, 500 yen with that little scoop




Catching toy balls



This is how they make tako yaki (tako means octopus)


I don't know the name of this food, but it looks like a hotdog with bones instead of sticks inside hehehe



hamburgers



choco bananas, bananas covered with chocolates



I don't know the name of this food, the toppings are pork



I bought two sticks of these chicken nori or barbecue (that's what I thought) actually they are chicken skins barbecue :-D, 200 yen each stick


friendly Japanese old man selling chicken skins


Misawa Tanabata Festival- this is the last post of the 3 series I posted for Tanabata Festival

Misawa Tanabata Festival- Part 2

Japanese custom- people write their wishes and hang them on this tree



This was along White Pole Road or now the "Main Street"



White Pole Road or the Main Street



Japanese wearing kimono



Japanese dancing "hula" to the tune of ...... (hahaha I forgot the song....sorry)



Those lanterns are like big cherries hehehe



Along the Main Street intersection, off the Misawa AB main gate is the famous "Lalala karaoke bar" and of course the food stalls along the street


Tanabata Festival

This is the second part of my Misawa Tanabata Festival post. This was held last July 24 to 26.
I will be posting the street food next time. Thanks for reading my blog and hope you enjoy, just leave comments.

Misawa Tanabata Festival (Part 1)

Misawa Main Street (popularly known as the WhitePole Road)

The stage for the shows

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Misawa Tanabata Festival


Every year Misawa celebrates the Tanabata Festival outside the Misawa Air Base main gate.
This year the festival was held from July 24 to 26. We went Saturday afternoon and we were fortunate enough that it did not rained. It was drizzling but still we enjoyed the event. The first day of this festival it rained very hard as well as Saturday and Sunday night , a really bad day for some people.

The streets were filled with bright, colorful and decorative streamers and lanterns. There were also a lot of food and toy stalls and children activities such as catching gold fish, target shooting, raffle draws and a lot more. There was also a dance contest and there were Japanese and American performers.

It's summer here (supposed to be), but that day was a bit gloomy and it did rained when we were leaving the place.


According to wikipedia:
Tanabata (七夕, tanabata^?, meaning "Evening of the seventh") is a Japanese star festival, derived from the Chinese star festival, Qi Xi (七夕 "The Night of Sevens")．
It celebrates the meeting of Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair). The Milky Way, a river made from stars that crosses the sky, separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. The celebration is held at night, once the stars come out.

Sentosa, Singapore

Tanjong Beach Sentosa, Singapore




Another view of Tanjong Beach



Photographers with their petite model (I was able to sneak some shots of their model :-) )


Tanjong Beach Sentosa, Singapore


I was able to see Sentosa when my brother had a photo shoot with his friends who are also photographers. Actually they are not really a pro photographers it's just their hobby to take photos with different models. My husband and my kids were so exhausted during our trip to Merlion Park and Esplanade so they decided to stay at our hotel and opted to go swimming in the hotel pool instead.

The last photo was how the photo shoot was held. The photographers took a lot of shots with different angles with their model for 2 hours. I was supposed to take photos of those guys there in the back but my lens was not huge enough to capture them :-). Can't you see them?

After the photo shoot session, we didn't go anywhere we headed straight back to Sembawang since it was about lunch time, my family were very hungry it so sad I did not have time to explore Sentosa. The trip to Sentosa from Sembawang was about 20 to 30 minutes by taxi and my brother paid only ~S$ 25. We will probably go back here and stay here for a week so we can enjoy Singapore.

Bye Singapore, we will see you next time....I hope :-)