One of the other Micron wives invited me to go with her to a autumn festival that they do in Miyajima this week. There is some dancing that they do at the temple to honor the fall Kami (spirits or gods). It sounded like fun and I got a new camera for my anniversary and this seemed like a good opportunity to play with it, so I met her at the ferry terminal and off we went.
It was a beautiful day.
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| The torii gate from the floating temple |
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| Having fun trying to learn how to use my new camera |
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| From the pier back towards Hiroshima |
It was a little warm when we started but once the sun set I was sure glad I had on long sleeves and a jacket. The wait for the performance to start was a little long and chilly but once it got dark it started. We did not stay for the whole thing (since it takes me a long time to get home and the later it gets, the less trains run and the longer it takes to get back) but we saw about 45 minutes of dancing. All of the dancers were male. The whole thing seemed very stoic and serious. It was not joyous dancing. There was a lot of repetition of the dances. For example, first a guy in a red costume did a dance, then a guy in green did the same dance, then they both did the same thing together. I wish I knew what it was supposed to symbolize.
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| The pagoda lit up at night |
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| The guys dancing with the torii gate in the background |
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| You can see their costumes better in this one |
It was pretty hard to get good photos. There were signs up asking people not to use flash photography which was largely ignored but I turned off my flash. This meant that if they were moving very much the picture was very blurry.
It was a fun excursion and a nice chance to see a little bit of Japanese culture.
In the spirit of fall (and playing with my new camera) here is a photo of a chestnut that I took when trying to figure out my camera. It's kind of cool looking, I think.
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| Random picture of a chestnut |
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