The Vagina Festival!!

The previous page has Part 2 of Shizuoka!

Today's the day!! I WENT TO THE VAGINA FESTIVAL!!!!!

Btw, guys, this is my 69th post.. The irony... I can't even...

I got up at 8 am and then we had breakfast at 8:30. Then I left the house at 9 because I was meeting my friends at Heian-dori (which is on the top of the Meijo Line (the subway line I take to school each day)). On the way, I stopped at the JR office in Nagoya Eki to buy my Shinkansen ticket. Yay!

It was more expensive than Esteban had told me it would be, so that kind of freaked me out. But still, I did get a pretty big discount with the student discount I'd gotten at school!

 Then I rushed off to Heian-dori. Because I had to switch lines since I was leaving from Nagoya, not Kanayama (since that was faster), I ended up getting there almost ten minutes late. 

Both Minju and Emma were already there waiting. I felt so bad! We all put money on our train cards and then headed over to the Kamiida Line. The Kamiida Line is pink!!

It had pink and purple seats!

While we waited for the train to leave (it had come over ten minutes early!), Minju showed us the features of the camera she'd just bought in Japan a couple of weeks ago.

Lawl, a "small face" feature

And of course, Japan has to have a "big eyes" feature

 The train ride was kind of long because we missed the stop and went all the way to the end of the line, to Inuyama Eki. Whoops. Luckily the train just turned back around once it reached the end, so we just rode back three more stops until we got to Gakuden, the stop we were supposed to get off on. 

From Gakudon, we walked to Oogata Shrine.

Drain covers in Inuyama!!

A smaller shrine, not Oogata, that we passed on the way

Rice paddy fields! Like in Japanese movies :)

Then we got to the path leading up to Oogata Shrine, which was lined with food stalls! It was like Heaven!
We'd meant to get to the shrine by 11 to catch the kid's parade, but we only got there at noon. Ah well. We did see a bunch of kids with the makeup on coming back from it, so that was cool!

Cute character cotton candy!

Cute character shrine (Kitty-chan, Anpanman, and Doraemon)

So many yatai! (food stalls)

yatai, yatai, yatai!

Chocolate covered waffle sticks. It was called "Magic Stick" haha.

Takoyaki! With a cute octopus hanging from the lantern.

Strawberry daifuku! Emma bought one on the way out. They looked really good, but were kind of overpriced imo.

Tornado potatoes! It was an entire potato cut in a spiral and stuck on a stick.

I thought this stall looked cool with the writing sticking out!

The balls in water game stall

SQUIDS ON A STICK! They looked too gross for me, though.

Holy crap, these crepes looked good. Especially since the one in the middle had an entire pudding and a pocky stick inside!! But I'm still waiting for Harajuku. Saraishuu!

It says "tornado potato" haha. More spiral potatoes on a stick.

Hawaiian drinks made with sparkling water and colored flavoring. It says "tropical juice".

Taiyaki stand and another chocolate banana stand.

Candy apple stall!

Then we finally reached the shrine!

Entrance

We were all pretty hungry, so we decided to eat first. But first we entered the shrine quickly to use the bathroom.

Hand washy thing with a dragon!

Japanese caution tape!

Such a cool view from the top of the street.

Me with the yatai :D

Me with the shrine!

Then we got some food and sat on a wall above a rice paddy field to eat.
We all got okonomiyaki. Emma got her own and Minju and I split one.

All these Japanese people passing by on that street with the yatai kept stopping to take pictures of us! I guess they thought three foreigners eating okonomiyaki at a festival was a rare sight? Idk. We mostly ignored them, but the ones we looked at would smile and sometimes thank us lol.

Our okonomiyaki. Mmmm. This one was better than the one I had in Osaka because it had noodles cooked into it!

Minju and me with our okonomiyaki

 One brave Japanese guy came up behind us to snap our picture. That gave me the idea to take a pic from behind. So I set up my camera on a timer and took this lovely shot:

 

After we finished eating, Minju and I were still a bit hungry since we'd split an okonomiyaki. So Minju got a tornado potato! She eats them in Korea all the time and really likes them.

Kawaii, ne?

And then I got what I've been wanting to try forever! A PINK CHOCOLATE COVERED BANANA!!

I really wanted the My Melody banana (pink one with the face), but these cute ones were 300 yen. :(

LOOK AT THE MAMESHIBA ONE! AHHHH

The 200 yen ones

Yusss, got one! The stand says "Fruit choco".

 

Mmmmmm

Ahhh so good! And it had a Koala March cookie on it too!

  

Banana ni haiteru!

Then the parade started, so we stood and watched it! This guy and his wife next to us tried to explain the parade to us.

The parade's starting!

 

 

This dude right here was the one talking to us. He knew all the guys in the parade, haha.

 

 

 

Giant mochi statue on one of the trucks!

 

  

Big important dude on a horse!

Dudes dressed like the noblemen in Onmiyoji. I guess it's Heaian period wear?

GIrls dressed as princessses.

 

The wife that had been talking to us before turned to me to tell me how this was the Ohinasama, but all I could think was vagina, vagina, vagina! We finally saw our first vagina! Emma didn't even see it until I showed her, haha. See it? In the girl's mouth? Behind the torii.

 

 

 

The ema at this shrine had naked women on them, lol

Osake barrels!

Me with the osake barrels. Doing the Japanese girl pose with peace signs up by your face.

One of the floats! So pretty.

Me with da float!

And then we found what I'd been looking for! The torii that you crawl through and it's like your crawling through a womb!! Yayyy. I had to do it.
No one was doing it, so I went over to this Japanese guy standing in front of it and made a motion like I was crawling and was like "daijoubu?" and the guy nodded and said it was, haha. So I did it!

 

It was actually a pretty tight squeeze. >.<

Coming outta da womb!

Pretty plum blossom area behind this shrine

AND THEN WE FOUND THE BEST PART!!! Another thing I'd been wanting to visit.
THE SACRED VAGINA ROCK!!!!!

See it? See its resemblance??

Omg, a vagina, guys...!

This guy came over while we were taking pictures and was all like "kore wa onna no hito no..." ("This is a woman's...") and we were all like, "yep! We know!" haha. He told us lots of times guys come here to "touchy-touch" the vagina. Uhhhh... hahaha....

I touched the vagina!

And climbed on the shrine. Pretty sure this was bad, but all the Japanese people who saw me were laughing.

Then we went to the ume (plum) blossom garden. It was so pretty! And full of both pink and white trees.

Preeeetyyyyy

Heaven

This Japanese guy passing by as this picture was being taken looked at me and was all like "kirei" (pretty) and I was like "arigatou", but then I realized he could have been talking about the flowers, haha.

kirei hana

Then there was a second parade, this time with people carrying floats!

The guys were all super tired

Big lobster thing!

Statue of the two mochi and orange commonly used as an offering

Putting the first float in one of the shrines

Putting the second float in another of the shrines. They had a bit of trouble fitting it in, haha.

Then we went over to the area with all the bags of mochi, because there was supposed to be mochi throwing and we were hoping it was now. But it ended up being a drum and dancing concert instead. But we got front row seats!

 

This guy came around with sake and gave Minju, Emma, and me some!

Free sake is always a plus!

Me with my sakeeeee

All the performers

Taking a bow

Here are some movies I took of the dancing. I figured out when I write the blog on my computer, I can upload movies!

In the beginning of the last one, you'll see how one of the guys with the cymbals saw me recording and got really close to the camera, haha!

We found out the mochi throwing wasn't until 4:15, which was in an hour. And we'd been planning to leave at 4 in order to get home by 7 for dinner. :( So we decided to look around a bit more and then leave.

Guys carrying in a golden float

I saw everyone carrying these rainbow things made of tissue paper. I asked one guy where he got it and he told me a place about 30 minutes away. But a girl ended up giving me one of hers because she had a bunch! I really like it. It rustled in the wind really beautifully.

Me with the golden float as they started taking it apart.

Me, Emma, Minju

Where they were going to put the float.

Then we went to go see the pond at the middle of the shrine.

The paper things mean it's a sacred area

You could take these papers, write a wish on them, and then set them in the pond with a 100 yen coin on top to sink it.

So we decided to try them out!

It says "musuhi" backwards

But when you folded it, it was written the right way!

Me putting in my paper with a 1 yen coin because I'm cheap, haha

The 1 yen coin didn't sink, but I cheated and prodded my paper a bit and it finally sunk!

Then we headed out.

People were praying to the float inside the shrine

Lady singing

All the mochi we didn't get to catch :(

Back through all the yatai!

Emma bought her ichigo daifuku

There was a stand with candied persimmons that we could sample. They were good! Minju bought a bunch and let us try them. Hers tasted better because they were fresher than the samples sitting out. Gosh they were good! They were hard on the outside and soft on the inside and tasted like a mix of apricot and plum.

Minju bought a bunch of these sweet breads shaped like kitty-chan and Doraemon and shared them with us

Then Emma and I got taiyaki to eat on the way out. It had gotten cool and the taiyaki were nice and warm! ;)

At the taiyaki stand!

Kitty-chan bread

Doraemon bread

Then we got back on the train and headed home.

It only took about 1 hr and 15 min as opposed to the 3 hours it had taken to get there that morning. So we could have stayed for a bit of the mochi throwing. Ah well.

Minju and Emma took the subway towards school and I went the other way. My way was SUPERRR crowded! It sucked. I was totally squished like I am on the way to school in the morning. The JR wasn't as bad, but I still had to stand.

I got home at 5:30 and no one was home. Everyone didn't get home until about 10 after 7. But Ken started making dinner right away. He made a really good meal of Chinese-style food. It was fried rice and cabbage and meat and soup with this donut shaped thing in it called "fu" that I learned is made of flour. It was all SOOOO good!

At dinner Ken asked which festival I went to. Crap! I said I forgot the name, which is true! I have no idea what it was called. He asked what shrine it was at and I said Oogata, but they still didn't know of it, which was good, haha. I told them about the food stalls, the floats, the drums, and the dancing though! As well as what I ate. And they seemed like they thought it was interesting!

Ugh, I don't want to go to school tomorrowwwwww :(((