Akita - Kanto Matsuri Festival

After going through Akita sightseeings, we finally headed for Kanto Matsuri location.

Brochure

It was still a little early so we decided to have dinner first.

We went to one area which had a lot of food stores.

It's a typical Japanese food stores you can see in a festival. :)

I had Ramen~.

Cheap and nice!

We went to the reserved seats and wait for the festival to begin!

They were just marching like this for a long time..

Here's the video I've taken.

"Hayashi", the festival music brought us to festival atmosphere.

BTW, what's "Kanto Matsuri Festival"..?

From Wiki:

The Akita Kantō is a Japanese festival celebrated from 3–7 August in Akita City, Akita Prefecture in hope for a good harvest. Around two hundred bamboo poles five to twelve metres long, bearing twenty-four or forty-six lanterns, topped with gohei, and weighing up to fifty kilograms, are carried through the streets by night on the palms, foreheads, shoulders, or lower backs of the celebrants.[1] The festival is first referred to in a[who?] travel diary of 1789 The Road Where the Snow Falls.It is one of the main festivals in Tōhoku, along with the Tanabata festival in Sendai, the Aomori Nebuta Matsuri festival, and the Hanagasa Matsuri festival in Yamagata. The Akita Kantō festival was designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1980.

It's getting dark and festival seems to start soon..

Finally lanterns are up!

They carry such a big lantern on a hand, a side of the hips, or a side of the shoulders.

 Or even on a forehead!

A lot of lanterns were coming on and on..

Even small kids can carry the lantern!

So cute!

Some of the lanterns are so high up!

Because those lanterns are carried by humans and they need balance to keep it straight.

Sometimes they lost balance and the lantern was falling down towards visitors' seats!

Here's some videos I've taken.

It was an enthusiastic Japanese festival.

Great experience.. :)

Akita - Kakunodate (Samurai Village)

After Tarawa Lake, we were heading for Kakunodade, where you can see houses used by Samurai.

Samurai items are my son's favourite and he was so exited to see it!!

Here's the distance from Tarawa Lake to Kakunodate.

When we arrived, it was...
Cozy, quiet, greenery area...

Black wall were beginning to show up.

BTW, most of Japanese Samurai houses have this kind of black walls.

I thought it was some kind of Samurai symbol or something but it seems it was the colour of Japanese lacquer.

There was a Japanese rickshaw (Jinrikisha).

It's also nice to try this nostalgic rickshaw to feel Japanese old life style.

We found one Samurai manor - Aoyanagi family manor.

Inside the house.

 Warrior armour and helmet used in Samurai era.

We went to another house in this estate.. 

There were mainly old Japanese paintings here.

Old Japanese map.

There was no "Hokkaido"~!

Maybe it was not found yet...?!

We went to another house..

So many houses in this estate..!

 There were mainly about farmer's tools.

Here comes another house..

There were many old pictures here.

That's all about Aoyanagi family manor.

It was really a huge house...!

Here's Aoyanagi family manor website. :)

After that, we found the ice-cream selling granny our tour guide was talking about!

She is so old and cute.

She makes flower shaped ice-cream. :)

I also took a video of her making ice-cream.