The Noise and Lights of Summer

I was woken up by fireworks on the fourth of July. This was sort of weird, as I was not in America.

The fireworks were the start of Narita's annual summer festival- three days of pulling around wooden floats, eating street food, drinking, and general revelry centered around Naritasan, the town's famous and massive temple. I had quite a good view of it, what with my classroom overlooking central Narita's main street. On Sunday I and a few friends went out into the madness, and I managed to snap of few pictures of it all.

This is the view from my school's balcony on the second day of the festival. It's about 12:30 in this picture, and already the dashi, the big, wooden floats, were being pulled around by teams of people.


Several groups of kids were in the festival, especially during the day. They held these jingling metal instruments that clanged lightly as they walked.


A dashi. They roll through the streets accompanied by shouting and music. The blended noise seeped into my classroom. While this was not a problem with adult students, my kids kept rushing to the window whenever one would pass below us.



From behind a dashi on the last night of the festival. The energy of the crowd in the narrow and lowlit street was amazing.