July 24, 2009 Archives

Our neighborhood ROKUGO-DORI SHOPPING CENTER will have MATSURI, summer festival, on July 24th and 25th, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. The shopping street will be filled with colorful food and toy stalls. Not only children enjoy them but also adults get crazy about them and they become kids again.

HATAGAYA SHOPPING STREET'S Bon Festival Dance will be held on August 1st and 2nd, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Bon odori (dances) was originally a religious ceremony to send ancestral spirits back to the spiritual world, but nowadays bon odori becomes one of the major summer entertainments in local MATSURI and people wearing yukata (light cotton summer kimono) gather and dance together. The movement of dance is soft and like cool sea breeze.

Fireworks are colorful, powerful, glamorous and romantic, but MATSURI is more delicate, sentimental and emotional ... maybe it is because MATSURI respects harmony among people and touches deep inner spiritual world.