Nakatsu Gion Festival

Hello, everyone I'm slowly getting caught up with the blog. These next series of posts are about the Nakatsu Gion festival. The Gion festival is a Shinto tradition that, I believe, every city in Japan celebrates at different times in July. Nakatsu has theirs the last week of July. From what I understand the festival involves taking the local Shinto god out of the town shrine in a special cart and parading him/her around town. The people have parades and party all night for 3 days in honor of the god. Each neighbor hood builds big,bright, colorful carts that people from that neighboorhood drag down to Nakatsu castle in a parade. These carts weigh a few tons and I hear that every year someone gets killed dragging one of these things.

I know some of these shots may seem boring to you but I just thought these outfits were so cool.





These are the giant float/cart/mini-stages being dragged to Nakatsu castle.