Tonight we headed to Aboshi for their Lantern Festival. There were the usual stalls lining the streets with great smelling foods and games for kids and some more portable shrines beautifully lit up for night time. After battling the crowds we made our way down the other end of the road to where the festivities were.Rising above the crowds were some bamboo sticks with lanterns hanging from them, but only for a short time. Soon there were many bamboo sticks hitting each other and smashing the lanterns to smithereens! It was pretty full on! There was then a giant lantern that everyone attacked and smashed into tiny pieces.
Next came a huge banner and giant pinata (well it reminded us of one anyway!). All the men formed a circle with the banner in the middle and chanted while hitting their bamboo poles on the ground, then they all ran in for the kill, but because of the height of the banner, only destroyed the bottom half of it!To finish our viewing for the night we saw the giant boy being lead into the middle of the circle. After the chanting and hitting of sticks on the ground, again they went in for the kill! The poor boy had his head ripped off and face pulled apart! Meanwhile there was a Japanese man standing behind us laughing his head off! We were glad that there are some Japanese people who find these things as amusing as we do!
