Sunday, June 8, 2014

とうかさん (Toukasan Festival)

Starting with the kick-off of Toukasan on Friday, summer festival season officially commenced in Hiroshima!

Toukasan is ( I believe) the first summer festival in Hiroshima, honoring the god Touka Daimyojin. If you're interested in the history and activities of Toukasan, you can read about it here and here. Or, if you just want the basic jist: It's a festival that includes tons of food and game vendors lining the narrow sidewalks of Chuodori (one of the major streets, if not THE major street, of Hiroshima's downtown area). Tons of people crowd the streets, many wearing yukata. It's not a great setup if you're in a hurry because there are so many people packed into such narrow walkways, but it's great if you want to experience a Japanese festival!



Unfortunately, BECAUSE there are so many people it's almost impossible to take any good pictures of the actual event. However, I did manage to take a few from last night when my roommate and I wandered around in Yukata of our own after work. 

We ran into a few friends of ours, including Serika from an izayaka we frequent~ We talked for a few minutes before her friend Kanako joined us, and then we all decided to take some puricura together! :)



After taking puricura , Lie and I wandered off. We were walking to another part of town when all the sudden we were ambushed by the staff from Big Boss, a music (especially guitar/bass) shop we've been to a number of times. Now that they were no longer restricted to the constraints of professionalism, they goofed around with us for a while. Eventually, one of them dragged me into Donki to take puricura. He was a little tipsy, but absolutely hilarious! I motioned for the others to follow as he dragged me away. 
The puricura turned out to be absolutely PRICELESS, but unfortunately he said we weren't allowed to post them for the sake of job security. It's really too bad because they're probably the funniest puricura I've ever seen xDD

After that, I walked Lie to a bar where she would be drinking for the night (I have work today). 


Tonight we're planning to attend the festival with friends, so hopefully the few, sad pictures I took yesterday will be replaced with much better ones! See you soon! <3





3 comments:

  1. You already have festivals going on!? Iya~n Osaka's pretty slow I guess lol I wanna buy a yukata, but I'm thinking about getting a guy's yukata since I can't find a ladies one I like. ;n;
    Very, very cute!! <3

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  2. Awww, sweetie if anyone could totally rock a guys yukata and still look chic, it is definitely you!! I want pictures when this happens!! :)

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