Mikoshi

This past weekend I had the good fortune of attending a mikoshi, a shinto festival where the worshippers carry a shrine through the streets, and up to the temple. Everyone dresses in special festival garb (aka hapi coats and loin cloths) and makes quite a ruckus. Shinto festivals are usually lively and colourful, the main objective being to entertain the gods, which often involves the consumption of a lot of sake. A friend of mine was taking part in the shrine carrying, and had invited O and I along.
After he had finished, we met up with him, and wandered around the neighbourhood, it being his hometown. It was a pleasant change from the chaos of Shibuya, and we wandered the quiet green streets slowly. It was a blistering 30 degrees, and our lack of sleep and dehydration (from the previous night of partying)really began to catch up with us!
Randomly and fortunately, the way most things here in Tokyo happen, we came across the Sunday children's unicycle club, and a giant mushroom pavillion. Just a few more Japanese surprises to brighten the day, and keep us wondering.......