The Morioka Festival

First, a little background info. Since the devastating earthquake last year, the northern regions of Japan (called the Tohoku region) decided to create a festival that combines the 6 different festivals of the area. The result: one massive collection of polite Asians, standing in alot of different lines for food, entertainment, and the bus.... oh the bus... I'll get to that later.

So for history sakes, I will state that we came with the Wonderful Watsons, The Marvelous Markers, and the Bodacious Broughs. Good Times. If you know them you can spot at least 3 of them in this picture. This is us escaping the crowd just for a moment.

SO I can't really explain what we did that day unless I convey the enourmonsity of "The Crowd." I get that I'm "from Idaho" living in the middle-of-nowhere-Misawa-country-bumpkin-awesomeness, but THE CROWD was insane. Before the above picture was taken, our 4 large Mormon/American families were navigating the crowd that was lining up to see a parade. There was a sidewalk corner, no more than 40 ft in length, that took us 10 minutes to get through. What makes it weird is that we were the only one with strollers, and Japanese are very quiet in uncomfortable situations like this. So We're all pushing sweaty toddlers and infants through a crowd and I'm calling out "Brett!-Brett" so I don't get lost and lets just say I'm getting lots of stares. If you've ever pushed a stroller in a crowd you know that people in general think they just need to get in front of you so it caused for a few Asian toes to be smashed. Sorry! Gomen! Gomen! I tried to be a good American Representative, but if it turns out I started a war... sorry about that America.

Anyways.... after "that corner" half of the families seceded from Mormon/American Union and planted ourselves in a shady spot, far away from what would be considered an "optimal view" of the parade.

 It's alright, Marie had a great time running around with her buds and Mina was sleeping. Besides, people around us seemed to be warded off by the thought of bothering a sleeping baby, so we got lots of space, and at one point a very nice lady kept encouraging me to stand in front of her.
I was able to see the first act, that of the Lantern Festival- You can watch someoneelse's better view here:
The Lanterns

(and yes, it is worth watching).

Apparently, after this first act they dropped the lanterns so no one else got to see it, including our friends that we ditched :(   - who knew, laziness would pay off?

Mina is all legs these days. She is a perfect candidate for a monkey leash. I love how she thinks she is running wild with her monkey while in actuality she is on a rope controlled strictly by mom. Props to whomever invented that.

And who needs parades? We left after the first act and I had to find this "bowl of rice" to take our Christmas card photo with. I was feeling overwhelmed  with the festival until we had this picture taken, then I felt accomplished. Thank you small child who dressed up as a bowl of rice, you made my day complete.

Just another view here.

 Tamzin, Marie & Laura Beth. I think they were playing "Scooby Doo" here. Marie was honorarily inducted into T&L's game as they started calling her "Velma" (b/c she has glasses). Cute :)
Also, this is supposed to be a Castle... or the remnants of one? I have no idea, but we couldn't find the Morioka Castle. Just so you know.


And lastly, the bus line.... oh the bus line.
As we were done we headed to the bus line that takes you back to your car (we parked in a lot, far out of town) we saw the line was very long so we headed to the end of it. We tried to join what we thought was the end until the traffic cop pointed across an intersection. The line went from 3 people- wide on a city sidewalk to an ENTIRE ROAD CLOSED DOWN FILLED FROM SIDE TO SIDE WITH STANDING PEOPLE. THE. ENTIRE. ROAD. People, quiet, facing forward, calm as can be. As I walked by the people my soul WAS CRUSHED. My soul has never been crushed by the sight of a line before. Not even on the hottest day at Disney Land or at an Airport bathroom line after a long flight.

I will give them props. I thought it would take 6 hours to get through the line. I thought I would just lay down and die there, surrender myself to the Japanese city streets and start sending my children out panhandle so we could make a living as we created a new life in the middle of the road with our would-be Japanese neighbors. But no. It took 1 hour to get into a bus and a half hour to get to the car. We were saved.

    At least we got a great picture while we stood in line.

Well, at least one.

The moral of the story is Japanese are better than American's at standing line. Slightly less dramatic, maybe.