Tullet and things

Last evening, we ventured to the nearby city of Goshogowara for Tachi-Neputa, which as you can see by the pictures means "Standing-Neputa." These floats are gigantic! See the wee-little policeman guarding this massive float, the float is 10 times bigger than him!! Watch out wee-little man; you're about to be hacked to death by this outraged samurai warroir clouded in fire!!


The monstrous float below is the opening float. The drums are loud enough to make your heart mummer!!

These gargantuous floats are pulled around the down town streets by strings of dancers followed by drummers who are followed by flutists who are trailed by cymbalers finally followed by a mass of dancers. These three instruments are the common ones used in all Neputa related parades.

One unique characteristic to Tachi-Neputa are the many groups of choreographed dancers clad in traditional Japanese styled clothing.

Another unique characteristic of Tachi-Neputa and quite obviously not so impressive is the amount of drunkenness allowed. Although we enjoyed the humongous floats and the traditional dancers, we were not so fond of the drunken revelry which trails the entire parade. Those of you living in America should be quite thankful you live in a country that prohibits public intoxication and public indecency because it was rather sad to see young women running around in their bras and children being dragged around by their intoxicated parents. This video only gives you a little idea of why you should be so thankful.

On a more positive note, an aspect of the festival that is not unique to Tachi-Neputa or any country it may seem, was the appearance of the wonderfulness of the Mullet. This one was worn quite beautifully, which we feel immensely lucky to have witnessed twice! in one day!! We believe this is of the species known as the Tiger Mullet or Tullet for short. Although the picture does not provide a perfect viewing of the rareness of the Tullet, you may be able to observe the varying colors of orange and brown within the mane. This must have been a very mature specimen as the mane was rather long reaching to about mid-back. A rarity indeed! This was quite possibly the best part of the day!!

In the Parade

Last evening we had the rare chance of a lifetime; we joined the Neputa parade!! One of our friends invited us to join Neputa with her friend's group, so it was a friend of a friend of a friend kinda thing. We were super excited to join the event and it was a pretty neat experience!

To prepare for the parade we had to put on our yukatas, which are the lighter summer kimono. This was a little trying seeing how we rarely wear them, in fact this may be the second or third time we have worn them. Angie had bought one previously, but Travis had to borrow one from the friend we joined with.

We joined our friend at the start of the parade. Most of the people who join also wear the yukata or something similar in the Japanese style.

If you are reading our blog you just read the last blog about watching the parade with one of our English club members. Well, she was telling us she would also join the parade, but we were all upset because we wouldn't see each other. But as it turns out, with slim chances as there are close to fifty groups, we ended up in the same group with her!!! (The girl on the left is our English club student, the girl on the right was a great student of Travis' from last year.)

Just before the parade started it began to downpour! And because it was raining, they didn't put the ropes out to pull the float but just pushed it. This meant we didn't have anything to do but walk and yell the war chant "Ya Ya Do!", which was fun any way. At least for most of the parade it didn't rain, but they moved the parade along quickly because the rain destroys the hand painted floats.

What a great way to make the most of our 240th day until we return and a great experience for our last year in Japan!!!! Here is a video so you can see the parade from our point of view.

Final Neputa Festival!!

We watched our final Hirosaki Neputa last night, and we did the full on celebration. You see, people around here don't mess around when it comes to Neputa. They mark their positions early in the morning to be assured to get the best position. So early, 6:30am, we went out to stake our claim. In the picture below you can see our little green tarp marking our position for tonights festival. Also in the picture you can see that others have come even earlier to make their claim, even with chairs. How and why nobody steals or rips up the tarps to put theirs down is a mystery.

So just to make sure nobody took our carefully selected parade position, we went out to anticipate the parade at 5pm, 2 hours before the parade starts. We brought our dinner, mini-chairs, free-read-books, and games to entertain us during our wait.

Here you can get a visualization of our delicious dinner consisting of ham and cheese sandwiches, yamabudo (mini-grapes), clementines, spare-rib pringles, and chocolates--Yum Yum!!

For most of the evening throughout the parade we were joined by one of our English club students and her friend. We enjoyed getting to spend extra time this summer with her as she is our only first year English club member. Although conversation is broken, she is quite a trooper in speaking English, even when she figured out last night that Angie (but not Travis) could speak Japanese! Our little green tarp served as a staging ground for her "boy watching" although we highly discouraged it and attempted to tell her that the heart is more important than the face!

So finally to the highly anticipated Neputa parade! It was a night to remember with 3 hours of fascinating lantern floats, drum beating, flute tooting, and mini-cymbal crashing. Each float has a different hand painted design and they compete for the most creative and well painted of the city. In this picture you can see the front of the float, depicting a warrior defeating his/her foes.

In this picture you can see the back of the float depicting a beautiful geisha that the warrior is fighting for.

Here is a video for you to enjoy the sights and sounds of this exuberant parade!!!

Summer Festival Approaches!!

These days we are delighted by the sounds of summer. By the sounds of summer we mean flutes and drums just outside our window. Yes, we are lulled the evening long as our neighbors practice for the Neputa festival that just started yesterday. Also, if you listen close enough you can hear our other lullabiers: a massive amount of birds who have invaded the trees next to our apartment. As you listen to the video you may notice that there is a lot of static, but that is not static, that is the massive, invading, bird flock!! This continues from around 6pm all the night long, long, long until the weeee morning hours when they fly away for the daylight hours.

Stay tuned for our Neputa festival parade stake-out!!!