Maebashi Fireworks and the Shibukawa Dashi Matsuri

I spent this weekend with a few people from the surrounding areas because there were some festivals going on in Maebashi and nearby Shibukawa.

It started off with the Fireworks competition in Maebashi. But our adventures started when we decided to try and take a bus to the park instead of walking. We got on the right bus and away we went. Unfortunately we missed the call out for our stop and ended up going a good 10 minutes further down the line than we needed to. Once we realised that we didn't know where we were we had the guy with the most Japanese go and ask the bus driver where our stop was. We took the laughter as a bad sign. After about 5 minutes of people trying to figure out how to pay the fare we were on our way again.

At the bus stop we met a nice girl who said she would tell us when to get off the bus. Yay! But when the bus came and we got on the bus driver announced to us over the intercom that he would tell us when we got to our stop because the other bus driver had radioed him about a group of lost gaijin -_-' Once we got to our stop the nice bus driver waived the fare and wished us well. It was really nice of them, but super embarrassing at the same time!

After that we found the park without any further incidents and met up with other JETs from Gunma who had set up a tarp. I got to meet some really great people while watching the fireworks and sharing one guy's iPod. For all of you who have never listened to music while watching fireworks, I highly recommend it! Magical! The whole show lasted almost 2 hours and had some really great moments.

We decided to walk back to the apartment after the bus ordeal and I'm glad we did because we met this really awesome Japanese guy in a fedora who had had enough to drink to try talking to us in English and he was a hoot! When we were scrambling up a dirt slope he kept yelling, "Danger! Danger!". Once we made it to safety he asked what we thought of yukata (casual kimonos) so we said that we really like them and that they were pretty. When we asked him why he wasn't wearing one he said, "I HATE yukata!" Oh well. He pointed us in the right direction and we found our way safely back home.

The next day we headed over to Shibukawa to see the Shibukawa Dashi Matsuri. This festival only happens every 2 years so we figured we should check it out. This festival involves groups of people pulling giant wooden floats full of people playing taiko drums through the streets. We didn't stick around too long though because it was disgustingly hot and humid and we needed to seek the sweet refuge of a store with AC. I felt bad for everyone who had volunteered to pull the floats!