Kanonji Matsuri

This past weekend was Kanonji's autumn festival. Almost every weekend in October there is a festival somewhere. The first weekend was Toyohama's. Kanonji's and Siajo's were this past weekend. I'm not sure who's coming up next, but there are still a lot of cities to go. Instead of having a carnival or a fest or Halloween, the Japanese make these large wooden vehicles, with drums, to drive the neighborhood gods around to the city shrine. These vehicles are called chosa, and they are huge! There are several poles that people pull and push them with while others ride in the top, and someone else sits in the middle, drumming. At the shrine there are vendors, with food and toys, and events. Kids get to dress up in kimonos and there have some sort of pageant. We couldn't get a good enough look to figure out what excatly they were doing, but we were more interested in the food anyway. There were candied apples, crepes, corn on the cob, yakitori, taiyaki, squid on a stick, and some other mystery foods. I was not brave enough to try them, but Mark did.

Everybody Loves Her

The Japanese are all about the group. If you're not part of their group, it's possible that they will ignore you. They don't mean to be rude or callous, its just that they don't know how to deal with your foreignness -- unless you're a four month old baby.

Every time we go out, there's at least one person who stops us to chat at Emma, and many more who openly stare. They make clicking noises and call her "Kawaii" (cute). Mostly its the older woman/grandmother type who do this, but tween girls are also likely culprits. One time it was a middle-aged business man. The only age group I've not had any reaction from is the teenage boy.

Last night another grandmother type cornered me in the grocery store while I was looking for a bento for dinner. Is this a common occurrence for people with infants in the States too? Have I not noticed this before because I haven't had an infant before?

But, because I agree that Emma is kawaii, here is some video: