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.

 

Wisteria Festival

Each year near by in the town of Kazo there is a Wisteria festival. It is held in the park next to the horse temple. It is a most pleasant and peaceful local family event. Over a series of weekends when the Wisteria are in flower people come and picnic and admire the flowers.

The tree you see here is over 400 years old, wonderful to think of all those generations pruning and tending to it. I paced out the area and this one tree covers 35 m2.








What's so nice about it is that its a very quiet and local event. No tourists ,except me, anwonderful local food stalls set up to help with the picnicking.



In fact the food was astonishingly  good and much better than the usual funfair fare.

 Charcoal  salt grilled Ayu, a small mountain trout. Incredibly fresh and sweet.







                   Grilled squid in a secret sauce.

Takoyaki, grilled octopus balls made with a kind of egg/dumpling dough. Always a favourite at these events.

 

                                    Fried noodles,Yakisoba.

 Lollipops and cheap toys.

Like France, there seems to be a festival or celebration of some sort almost every weekend. The local towns and villages take turns in hosting them. We really don't have this sort of thing, or at least don't do it very well,  in Australia. Except of course  the  Port Lincoln Tuna-rama, Tamworth Elvis Impersonators Festival and the Bundarra Goat Races.

Poster Madness

At our local station there are a fantastic collection if posters announcing various things. I'm developing a bad case of "poster love". I can only understand bits and pieces but the designs and subject matter are often marvellous. Wonderfully, many if them advertise flower festivals, cultural events and often just advice on how to be a good Japanese.

Cute characters, often explaining quite serious things, are ubiquitous.

This one tells women to watch out for gropers etc and what to do to avoid them.

An advertisement for a TV drama.

An advertisement for the Skytree Line. This is the new name for our local line because it runs through the station where the tallest structure in the world has just been opened. The Skytree is much in the news and has already attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors. You don't want to be on the observation platform at the top during an earthquake though.

To Market to Market

Despite the rise of convenience stores, local farmers markets are thriving in Japan. As in  Australia concerns about food safety are causing a constant increase in bsuiness for them.

In our area there's a great market open every day. It has all sorts of local foods. All coming from the surrounding fields. This means that even the soya sauce and cooking oil is local.

The photos, names, addresses and phone numbers of each of he farmers is displayed above the produce so you can ring them up and find out how it was produced.

 


As with all markets it pays to get there early, a shufu senso (housewife war) breaks out at about 10.30 and serious injury can be sustained while trying to get the best tomatoes.

                                                         

Spring is the time for bamboo shoots

Prices are very low. In fact compared to Australia, in Japan many of the basic foods are far cheaper.

You can get different sorts of rice grown litereally from the fields across the road. You can then get it polished to various degrees. Much like selecting your coffee in Australia. Tomono uses a blend of Mr Suzuki's rice and one called "Snow Queen".                 


We then get it polished to 80%. The resultant grains are really like nothing I've seen in Australia. Little pearls would be the best way to describe them. With a translucent quite firm outer skin and sweet soft and fluffy inside.

Our area being quite a traditional place, all sorts  of unusual produce pops up from time to time. An all time personal favourite of mine are deep fried locusts...no I haven't tried them










The market has a real community feel to it  and at different festival times etc lots of traditional activities take place there.

Here, making "mochi", sticky rice cakes. They sing a song a they do it. As one hits the rice with a big hammer, the other in between times, quickly turns it. The song is to prevent bad timing and smashed heads and hands.