Kawagoe Festival – October 20, 2007

George and Paola

Singers on a rooftop

Singers in a float

Typical Float at the Kawagoe Festival

Battling Floats at Kawagoe Festival

Several people at work told me about the Kawagoe Festival. It is one of the biggest traditional Japanese festivals in Japan, and famous throughout Japan. My buddy from work told me to go with him, even though I didn’t want to at first. Paola works right there, though, so I thought that it would be easy to meet up with her after she was done with her shift, so what the hell?

Before leaving work, Matt opened the closet, and I saw a windbreaker with our company logo on it. I thought that with all of the trouble that our work was going through, my coworkers would be happy to see me in it. So I stole it from work, in lieu of getting paid, and wore it out to the festival.

The festival was crowded with people, and much bigger than I had expected. It was not simply one long street covered off, but rather, the whole center of town was consumed by the festival. Of course, there were food stands and beer stands all over (remember, you could drink on the streets in Japan!), but there were other things too.

For one thing, every hundred meters or so, there would be a small concert being played on the roof or balcony of a short building. The music that was being played was traditional Japanese music, and it all sounded the same to me. The players were wearing masks and dancing and having a lot of fun.

Another great treat was that there were large floats representing different neighborhoods in Kawagoe. These floats were taller than they were long or wide, and they looked to me like battle towers, or siege towers from the medieval ages. Inside, instead of men with spears, swords, or bows and arrows, the floats would meet and battle each other with music and dancing.

After drinking a lot and having fun with friends, we went back to someone’s house who lived close by, and kept the party going there since the street festival ended around 10 or 11. I thought that we were pretty rude to the neighbors since house parties like this aren’t usual in Japan because the walls are paper-thin. Anyways, we had a good time.