Festivals

On Saturday, our town held a festival to wrap up obon week. As the newest city employees, we were asked to participate. Our job was to perform a dance for two blocks. We also had less than half an hour to learn this dance.
Saturday was hot, but not as hot as it has been. It was still really hot though. We met at the park prior to dancing and discovered many of the other city hall employees drinking and eating (mostly drinking). They offered us food and drink. I passed. I did not think that heat, alcohol, and a dance would mix well. When we lined up on the first block to begin dancing, I soon realized why everyone had been drinking so much. Only one or two of maybe 40 people, knew the dance. With alcohol in their systems, they could blame their mistakes on the booze. I should have thought of that.
I finally got the dance down, but I was becoming distracted by the taiko (Japanese drum) performers. Most of them were probably elementary students. They were really good too.
After the dancing, we were free to do whatever we wanted to. We walked around and saw some really cool floats for the parade, paper lanterns lining the streets, and local food vendors. I know we have a lot of these things back home, but the foods were very different, the floats were not like anything I had ever seen, and the yukata (summer kimono) is definitely not something we see other people wearing on a semi-regular basis.
As I was walking around, trying to take everything in, I realized that this is part of the culture I wanted to experience in Japan. The best part though, is that I am getting paid to be here.