Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Aomori Nebuta Festival

















I'm sorry to this late post, due to our relocation/moving stuff I was too busy to post and update my blog. We left Misawa, Japan already but I will continue to post pictures which I missed during my stay in Japan and I will still post my travel photos wherever I maybe ;-). Sayonara Misawa, I will miss Japan so much!!!
We left Japan, Sept. 13, 2010. My travelog continues......

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August 7, 2010 Aomori Nebuta Festival- it was indeed fully packed with people and turps (hehehe), we couldn't find a place to sit, the people reserved their spots by laying down their turps on the ground. We arrived at the ASPAM place about 3pm just right after the Nebuta parade. We missed the parade so we decided to stay to wait for the 2 hour fireworks which started at 7pm.
The parade is held every year from August 2 to August 7, where the floats are carried through the city during the evening from August 2-6, and during the daytime on August 7. A two- hour fireworks show is held on the evening of the final day while the float is carried into the sea.
Due to overwhelming people who watched this festival we didn't even get to see the floats on the water and we left after an hour of fireworks (around 8pm) just to avoid the traffic jam and to catch the train before its last trip. I didn't get to take pictures of the floats during night time so all my pictures were taken after the parade where the floats were parked in their own hangar (or whatever you called that floats parking spots hehehe).
I would suggest that you should see this festival during Aug 2 to 6 to avoid the crowd and not during the last day, well if you don't want to see the fireworks but if you want to see it better bring your own turps or chairs and you have to be there early in the morning.
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Aomori Nebuta Festival is a Japanese summer festival that takes place in Aomori City, Aomori Prefecture, Japan. The festival is the most popular tourists attraction of any of the country's nebuta festivals.
According to wikipedia, "Nebuta" refers to the float of a brave warrior-figure which is carried through the center of the city, while dancers wearing a unique type of costume called haneto (ハネト?) prance around in time with the chant Rasserā (ラッセラー?). In the local dialect, participation in the festival is inquired using the adjective haneru (ハネル?, ex. "今日もハネル?" or "Are you going to haneru today?"), which was derived from the Japanese spelling of the haneto costume and the adjective haneru (跳ねる?, "bounce").