Nakatsu Lantern Festival

Me in a borrowed yukata

On Tuesday, August 9th, the gang of new and old Nakatsu ALTs had some tasty home-cooked pasta together and then headed out to the beautiful lantern festival! One of many summer festivals, this one required some yukata (summer kimono) gear, so a few of us had bought our own the previous week at a local mall called Youme Town (pronounced yu-meh town, much to my confusion!). I, however, borrowed one from R, my predecessor, who amazingly had two yukata and even more accessories to spare! The accessories include the obi (wide belt-like cloth to go around the midsection) and ties for the obi. R really knows her stuff, and she was the only one of our group who knew how to tie/put on yukata, so she helped almost all of us out. The others who came to the festival later had gotten appointments at the yukata shop to have them put on.

It took a while to get the yukata on, so we were actually late to meet one of the supervising teachers at the festival. :( But we didn't miss the festival itself! There were many side streets off what I believe is called Teramachi (or, temple town) with displays of hand-made large lanterns. The lanterns were done by many junior high school students in the area. In fact, many of the students we saw were students of our ALT gang! So there was much jovial conversation made in English, and it really amazed me to see just how integrated the JETs are in the local community. It's a lot of pressure, and big shoes to fill, as I've been thinking ever since I got here. At some point, one of our new members, F, got swept up by a local Japanese man and taken on a whirlwind temple tour in the neighborhood. We didn't see him for a while, but when we found him, he was aglow with the history knowledge he had gleaned from the guy!

In the midst of lantern-viewing, there was a performance of Heian-era music at one of the temples. It was very... unique! It sounded similar to bagpipes, but in a higher pitch and in more of a kazoo-type timbre. The veteran JETs were of the opinion that, more or less, once you've heard it once, you've heard it forever... also known as, all Heian music sounds the same.

We had some photo ops in our yukata on a pretty bridge, watched energetic young kids careening around, and met up with some folks from Keio Academy. I'm still not entirely sure what the relationship is of Keio Academy to JET, but in any case these people were very friendly! One of them had cats on her obi! After hanging out for a while, we went to a local bar for drinks, although I was super tired from the day and ended up peacing out early. All the same, it was a super fun experience, and I'm so glad I went.