Chiba GoGlobal

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Tuesday, 11 November 2014

Day 4: Sahara Authum Festival @ 06:30

Hi guys! This is Zi Ning.

On the 4th day, we went to visit the Sahara Authum festival, which will be shared by Genia.

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This is an annual festival which has a tradition of about 3000 years. There are countless local festivals (matsuri) in Japan because almost every shrine celebrates one of its own. Most festivals are held annually and celebrate the shrine's deity or a seasonal or historical event. Some festival are held over several days.

These are photos of them pulling the float up the hill. They even asked us to join!

Many festivals also feature decorated floats (dashi), which are pulled through the town, accompanied by drum and flute music by the people sitting on the floats. Every festival has its own characteristics. While some festivals are calm and meditative, many are energetic and loud.

They also stopped to do a dance which some of them were kind enough to teach us.

Here are some adorable kids having fun in the festival.

This shows the guys supporting this particular float that sprinted up the hill. I learnt that they probably had a good harvest and that’s why they were really happy.

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This is a video of them pulling the float.

We also tried an exclusive soyu (soya sauce) ice cream, made some prayers and did a little shopping!

We then had our lunch at a nearby restaurant.

After visiting this festival, we went back to Chiba Instiute of science where we met our homestay families.

Following this post, there will be next 3 individual posts from Zinc, Eugenia and I on our homstay! Stay tuned! :)

about

Objectives

GoGlobal is an initiative by DSD in Singapore Polytechnic to encourage students to be exposed to overseas cultures so that they may be better equipped with global awareness.

This blog is used to keep track and to share our experiences on the Chiba GoGlobal trip from 9 October 2014 to 19 October 2014.

the chiba project.