District Spring Festival.

This morning, we attended a spring festival for the district. More than half of the population are elderly, retired farmers as most of the younger people have gone to the city for work. The customs of the past linger on here and are taken quite seriously. Today's festival was a Shinto plea to the gods for a good season. When we arrived the ceremony at the shrine was already started, but only the people whose turn it is this year to organise the festival actually take part in this ritual.

On the left is the path to the shrine and beneath, the shrine.









While the ceremony kept going, Toshiko and I went to the four sides of the shrine, giving tokens of money (a few yen) to the gods, bowing twice, clapping twice and bowing once. When we finished that, we were given sake to drink and a "lucky number" on a little stick.


I saw lots of people who remembered me from my last visit and some who remembered Keith from his visit in 2004.

Here I am with Sakamato San, who was once the mayor of Nakatsue, and a famous one, because he was responsible for bringing the Cameroon soccer team to practise here before the World Soccer Competition in 2002.
Here is a photo of me today, and the photo on the right shows him in 2002 - it was in the Goldmine Museum.

These are some of the village people. Keith knows  Hanako and i have met the other ladies before.
After the ceremony, they drew the lucky numbers and everybody got a prize, including me.
We then walked home through the forest and visited another very old small shrine. The photo shows two images of gods in the shrine, built in 1841 (Tenpo, during the Edo Period). They are both decaying badly. The other photo shows the dates - for Keith to read.

And, finally, the view as we walked through the forest - a bit hazy today, but still beautiful.