Boys' Day and the world's biggest carp kite

Once again back to Kazo, they seem to have a lot of festivals. But this time instead of a quiet affair we went to a big production. In a park on the banks of the Tone river the world's biggest carp kite is flown. It is a truly astonishing undertaking. The kite measures 100 meters long and is flown from a crane the height of a ten story building. It takes two hundred people to get it aloft. The eye of the carp is 15m across.

The river area itself is marvellous. Although only half and hour from the house it is now well beyond the urban sprawl. From the river embankment there is a great view of the  snow capped mountains of Nikko and as far away as Fukushima.

Thousands of people came for a fun family day in the spring sunshine etc.

People were picnicking and once again enjoying an astonishing array of local foods. I described a lot of them in the previous post, but ones that seems to pop up at every fair are these:

They are, they are..... chocolate coated bananas. They look like...an appetising snack yes?


It was all rather a hoot. Lot's of local entertainment:

Dancing grannies, drummers and choirs. Despite a lot of it looking and sounding like the Goondawindi Line Dancing Championships, some of it was actually very good.

Goldfish you can fish and take home. This is a very old tradition at fairs in Japan. The catch is the little net is made of rice paper so you only have a little time, and perhaps one chance, to get your fish. 

And speaking of tradition, it is not really a proper cultural event, is it?...  Unless you have giant Super Mario.







 


And so to the main event the giant carp kite. The flight was delayed by an hour as the wind was a little strong. As the kite itself ways over half a tonne and is absolutely enormous, there's a real possibility of disaster in lively conditions. The engineers amongst you will of course happily calculate the force acting on a crane that high when you have something pulling horizontally at the top of it. For the non-engineers; cranes are usually designed to lift things up and down, not to strain against things sideways.

Up and flying. To a cascade of fireworks.






And much applause.