2015 “Morioka Sansa Odori Festival” [2015.7]

“Morioka Sansa Odori Festival” is the biggest festival in summer in Morioka. It’s actually the biggest because this fes has held the title of “The world’s largest drum parade” certificated by Guinness World Records. How wonderful it is!

Talking about the name of the festival, “odori” means to dance in Japanese but “sansa” is difficult to explain even in Japanese language. It’s said that it was shouts to dance when “Sansa Odori” first began hundreds years ago. I’m not sure about it because there is no “sansa” phrase in a lyrics of “Sansa Odori” today.

“Sansa Odori” is a traditional Japanese style dance by Japanese drum players, Japanese flute players and dancers all wear Japanese Yukata clothes and make a 1-kilometer parade. Like Brazilian Carnival, companies, schools and local groups make dance teams and attend the festival.

When is “Sansa Odori Festival” held? It’s from August 1st to 4th. The time is from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The place is Chuuohdori street in Morioka.Thousands of people attend the parade and more than tens of thousands of people from inside and outside Morioka watch the parade. It’s really the biggest.

I know it’s hard to explain with words. Here is links to useful sites about “Sansa Odori”. Please check them out.

• “Sansa Odori” official site is here. (Japanese language only)
• “2014 Sansa Odori” YouTube page is here.
• Traditional “Sansa Odori” preservation committee site is here. (Japanese language only)
• A link to English brochure (pdf) in “Sansa Odori” official site is here. (I’m afraid it seems to be made a few years ago, but still useful)

A map below shows the place of Chuuohdori street.

“Morioka Kitakami-River Rafting Fes” Won Back The Record [2015.7]

(I have to confess that, in my former post about “Morioka Kitakami-River rafting festival”, I spelled “laft”. It’s so embarrassing 😦 )

“Morioka Kitakami-River rafting festival” is a fun in summer time in Morioka. But it’s not just summer fun. As I posted before, it’s a kind of competition for Guinness’s “Largest raft race” section. And the result is…we won!

According to the official facebook page of the festival, the record was Bern’s 607 rafts with 1214 people and Morioka’s new record is 814 rafts with 1624 people! congratulations!

Here is a photo of the starting point of the fes. You could see how many people attended the fes for fun and the record.

Here is the official facebook page (Japanese language only)

Celtic Key [2015.7]

Morioka city is a small local city so my everyday way of transportation around Morioka is a bicycle. If it’s not rain.

But walking, really walking around the city has good aspect, being able to have much more chances to find some new thing.

One rainy day, I found an interesting sculpture in the middle of downtown Morioka.

What do you think this is? According to the name board below, the title is “Celtic Key”. In my opinion, it’s more interesting to get a web page about a key player of a professional football team, Celtics 🙂

Photo of Mt.Iwate [2015.7]

Typhoon “Nangka” hit western Japan and caused a lot of floods, land slides and traffic disruptions. Morioka city and other northeastern Japan area did not have any serious damages but, because of warm and humid air came from “Nangka”, the weather around Morioka was rain.

It might be fine to post this kind of photo in such an occasion.

I prefer Mt.Iwate with snow but that in summer season is also beautiful, especially under the blue sky without any pieces of cloud.

Sunset Scene with Mt.Iwate [2015.7]

I got a new job assignment this April. Before that, I had a tons of business trips, it’s longer than one-week sometimes. Now I rarely have business trips, even one-day roundtrip. It seems that my new assignment is easier, lighter than that of before April. I feel I can say so, but the point is that it’s almost new for me 😦

One day, when I could leave my office earlier than usual, I was happy to see such a scene.

I need a vacation.