Nikko Yayoi Festival ~Let it Rain..........

Our trip started at 9am to attend the Yayoi Festival in Nikko City, Japan.  I had no idea we were going to be picking up 2 adult students of Ugie's history class.  1st lady picked up Tssuneko and 2nd lady's name was Yoko.

What an adventure going to Nikko.  The road had a beautiful canopy of some cherry blossom trees and some cedar trees.  What an amazing adventure so far. 

When we arrived in Nikko another surprise, Kashiwamura~san's entire class of students were there waiting on us.  More students even joined up later. Kashiwamura~san  did a lot of talking about temples and shrines and the parade but we could not understand any of it.  Keiko tried to tell us some information, which really was great information. 

 It has started to rain, and within minutes, it was pouring the rain.  I love rain chains and saw this one hanging from a temple.  

 The parade has started and there will be 11 beautifully adorned floats called hana~yatai from each town. Any mistake causes allot of trouble, which is why this festival is also called gota matsuri.  12 festival floats decorated with flowers go around the town with traditional musical instruments. Tourists also got the opportunity to pull the huge floats.  Marlon was asked if he wanted to help pull and took a turn pulling the large float.  

This is the man who asked Marlon to help pull the float.

Marlon toeing the line, toeing the line.

Ready guys pull, pull, pull

special shoes worn by the many people of the temple.

Talk about a downpour of rain.  Wow, it's raining so hard.

So many umbrellas and so many people trying to stay dry to watch the ceremony.

This little girl was such a cutie pie.

 The rest of the pictures are from people in the ceremony.  Enjoy because I really enjoyed this cultural experience. 

Thanks, Kashiwamura~san and Keiko for another adventure in Japan.