In lieu of content, time for which is sorely lacking at the moment, I present you (again) with some pictures of a local Warabi (Saitama) festival that took place last November in celebration of the historic Nakasendo highway which courses through here from Tokyo to Kyoto. We had gotten there a little late in the day, and so only made it in time to see a parade of Japanese samba dancers, which make up the bulk of the photos. The ties between Brazil and Japan are long and deep, and so it shouldn’t be surprising to see this band of Japanese women shaking their booty to the samba beat, dressed in brightly colored costumes (in point of fact, there’s a huge Samba festival in Asakusa every year), but nevertheless it was something of a cultural disconnect to see them gyrating down this old highway with two- and three-hundred-year-old buildings.
(Click on the above photo to be taken to a larger photo. If you click on the right-pointing arrows on that page, you can scroll through the rest.)
Those costumes! August – yes, November – nooooooooo….
*shivers*
It’s erojiji paradise! Just try to get a Kyoto gal to show a little leg under her kimono at the Gion Matsuri. Too conservative.
gomichild, i told Naoko your comment and she reminded me that it was an exceptionally warm early November day, if it makes those costumes any easier to take 🙂
nils, thanks for adding a word to my jisho (erojiji), Naoko explained it to me, and once again reminded me of something on this fest day, which were these, uh, shall we say “otaku-poi” guys with coke-bottle glasses and very expensive camcorders taking in the action, so to speak
Great, nice I could make a good impression on your wife.