Bon dance in Mitake

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On the 25th of July, we took some of our guests to the outskirts of Tokyo for so much needed countryside fresh air and some exciting cultural events.



Bon is a traditional event of Japan in summer. It is a time when people make offerings to their ancestors and pray for the happiness of their ancestors' souls in the next world. During this time the folk dance, Bon Odori, can be seen in cities, towns and villages all over Japan.



To celebrate the Bon season, our friend Yoshimura san, invited us to join in a local Bon dance festival in Mitake, the town he lives in. It is about 2 hours west of Tokyo.

We got to Mitake station a little after noon and met Yoshimura san in his house, a big and beautiful Japanese style house said to be over 100 years old, looking over the beautiful mountains of the Mitake area.





The beautiful view from Yoshimura san's house



He than took us on a tour to the local senior’s citizen house. There we got to see the facilities available for the elderly guests, and enjoys some small talk with many seniors. We even got to try out an motorized wheelchair!



From there we went to the local shrine where many people had gathered for that nights Obon festival. All the locals were so nice to us; they even let our 2 girls in the group borrow some yukatas to use for the festival.





An Australian girl and a Finnish girl looking good and ready for the festival



There was a lot of food, drink and of course dancing.

We all had a go to dance, at first it was hard to follow all the steps in each dance but we quickly got the hang of it. It was so much fun!





Eating good food and talking with the locals





The stage, or Yagura tower where people can dance





Our guest joined in the dancing too!





And some more dancing



Later, after the festival we went back to Yoshimura’s place and had some more food and drinks and talk about many things.





Yoshimura san(far left) our wonderful host and our guests enjoy eating and drinking in his house.





Some of the delicious food our fabulous host prepared for us.



Even though it was the middle of summer, inside the house it was really cool and so we could enjoy drinking and looking at the night sky and mountains very comfortably. As it got very late Yoshimura san set up the futons and we slept very well.



In the morning, Yoshimura san prepared for us a nice breakfast and then he took us to a small shrine nearby which had a Shishimai festival.





Shishimai (lion dance)



Shishimai (lion dance) is a type of dance where people dress up as lions and perform a dance. The costumes they wore were very colorful and there was some kind of story being told through their dances as the lions performed the dance.





The dancers had some beautiful and elaborate costumes



However it was really hot and soon it was time to go or die from the heat.





The dancers taking a break from the heat and dancing



We said our good byes to Yoshimura san and came back to Tokyo. It was funny because we had left Nakano only for 2 days but it felt like it was more like a week.

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