Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Obon Festival


Obon Festival Folk Dances

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend our local Obon Festival this past weekend.  Obon is a Japanese custom of honoring one's ancestors.  It's celebrated with wonderful food, arts and performances and dancing. The stately woman leading the dances above is Sahomi Tachibana, grande dame of Japanese traditional dance.

It was fun to wear a yukata (casual cotton kimono) with a fancy-tied obi (thank you MK!).  The orange fan is used for fanning as well as in some of the folk dances.  I even tried my hand at some of the dance, great fun!    



The wooden platform shoes are called geta.  They make a nice clack-clack sound when walking.  The ones shown below are covered in black lacquer.

Many people wore kimono and looked simply stunning!  It was lovely to see the young men and women dressed in bright blues and whites,with colorful obi.

And green Nike's.  ;-)  This young man is participating in a multi-generational folk dance.  How cool!

And now, the food...many delicious choices, including noodles, spam specialties and deserts called manju.

My friend MK was incredibly generous and made a bento lunch for me.  Delicious!  And to top off the day, I enjoyed shaved ice with guava and lychee syrup.



A wonderful day full of cultural treasures.

5 comments:

Marilyn Miller said...

How fun it was to see you in costume on Saturday. I loved also the little red purse you were carrying. Sadly we came to late for the sweets, but everything else looked and tasted delicious, including the shaved ice - mango and strawberry for me.

Ana said...

Great seeing you there! The sweets were so much fun. And that bento looks amazing.

Angela McRae said...

What a delightful time, and I am so impressed with your costume--you're a natural!

amherstrose said...

OOOH! I want to go too! You look so pretty in your kimono. What a wonderful celebration.

You know I would be there wanting to try all of that wonderful food too!

Sending you a hug, dear Stephanie.

Mary Jane

Colleen said...

Such a great share of photos and descriptions of the celebration day. You do look lovely in your kimono and beautiful sash, But as cute as the shoes are, the green nikes win my vote for comfort!