The big reveal....

Golden Week in Hamamatsu Day #1

Better late than never......Below are some more photos from our Golden Week Trip. We got into town late on Sunday afternoon after fun train ride. The hotel we were staying at was attached to the train station so we didn't have much of a walk to worry about.

Let me tell you a little about the festival. It seemed to have two main areas of focus. One is on the various neighborhoods (they call them towns) in Hamamatsu. Each town has their own "uniforms", floats, etc. Many of the activities are centered around each town competing with the others. There are about 170 or so different towns in Hamamatsu. There seems to be an enormous sense of pride in each respective town. The other main focus in one the children. The festival is the time to dedicate each child that was born in the last year. It was really cool how they treated the children during the festival - like Kings and Queens.

The picture below is a group of teenagers that were outside of the station when we arrived. They are all members of one respective town and they are wearing the uniforms (jackets and headbands) to show it. Each town has their own uniform.

Right outside of our hotel they were having an International festival. There was a big stage and all kinds of street vendors with our favorite - street food! We spent some time that first afternoon checking out some of the activities on the stage. I loved all the little karate kids.