Experiencing different festivals of the world is one of my passions, so you can imagine my delight when I found out that we would be in Bangkok for the Loy Kratong Festival. During the festival times, normally tourist-weary locals are more talkative, open, and generally in a better mood. The city is cleaner and the excitement in the air is palpable.
So far we have been extraordinarily lucky - we hit the Asakusa Samba Festival in Japan, the Ladakh Festival in Leh, the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Diu and Mumbai, Dandiya in Chennai, the Durga festival in Calcutta, and now we were in town for the Thai's second most important festival of the year. It has been chance all except for Calcutta (most of these run on the lunar calender making it hard to find the exact dates).
Possibly hinting at Indian roots, the main activity of the Loy Kratong festival is to buy or make a kratong and release it with lit incense and a small candle into the river. Unlike the Hindu festivals we have attended, this one seems to have unclear origins. It seems that the Thais take is as a festival to mark the beginning of the cool, dry season and releasing of the kratong as good luck.
The kratongs are usually made of a disc of banana tree, bread, or styrofoam (think the kind that you caulk windows with). Trying to find a less environmentally damaging one, we picked was a simple lotus flower. They are decorated with folded banana leaf, flowers, incense, and candles. I read at sometimes there is money in the center which explains the three women in a longtail boat downstream from the releasing point fishing them out, dumping the contents in the boat, and throwing them back in the water.
Some of the main events took place in the park near our guesthouse in the neighborhood of Banglampu. There were plenty of foods stalls (more on that to come in another blog), balloon sellers, and 2 stages. One stage was for beauty contests and traditional dance and song. The other larger one for a Thai rock band. It was all very well organized with marine patrol and Mardi Gras barrier corrals to wait in before releasing your krathong.
The floating kratongs in the Mae Nam Chao Phraya river and the Mardi Gras-like floats parading down the river made for a magical night. We released our krathong with the help of a man down the walkway from the festival. He was using a fan cover attached to ribbon to hoist up floating krathongs. I thought at first he was looking to take the money out of them as well. However, all he did was insert a stick topped with a alcohol soaked sponge, light it, and release the flaming kratong back in the water. I guess he was looking for lots of luck.
- Nisha
Showing posts with label Festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Festival. Show all posts
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Durga, the Mother Goddess
So sorry we have been so out of touch. We have had very little access to the Internet, but have been able to upload pictures. Now for the stories behind them...
After we left Chennai, we went to Calcutta to celebrate Durga Puja with my dad's extensive family. Durga puja is the largest puja celebrated in West Bengal. Community organizations prepare huge and colorful pandals which is a themed house. These temporary foam and cloth structures inside hold the elaborately decorated pratimas, or idols, and outside play host to a small carnival. The streets are lighted all around the pandal to guide the public. The thing to do during the main four days of the festival is to walk around touring pandals with your friends or family all night long (literally, our driver did not come back in the morning after pandal hopping all night). Like Mardi Gras where the question of the day is "which parades have you seen?", in Calcutta during Durga puja, it's "how many pandals have you visited?"
As with the Ganesh pratimas in Gujarat, the pandals for the Durga puja are all involved in fierce competition for prizes given away by the newspaper organizations and the city. Some even have political messages - one had a figure of Bush holding a missile while nearly being attacked by a lion. Durga was standing on the earth to symbolize peace. I believe this was in reference to the now-stalled US-India nuclear pact which the government of West Bengal, the Communist party, oppose out of solidarity with China. Anyway, all were great fun.
There are religious ceremonies that take place daily by the pandit (priest). on the 4th day, called Asthami, devotees assemble for a complex ceremony that occurs at a time prescribed by the astrologers. This year, it was 8:27 PM on Thursday the 18th. During the 45 minutes after 8:27, Durga will appear for a split second in the form of the pratima. Anyone seeing her at this time will have their prayers answered. It was actually an electrifying experience being among so many people who believed that they would see their beloved goddess come alive before their eyes in the form of the decorated Durga pratima. There is nothing I have witness in Christianity that could compare to the excitement of this part of the puja.
After this most holy period, then anyone can touch the pratima, not just the pandit. On the 5th day of the puja, the pratima is loaded on a truck and brought to be immersed in the Ganges, with great fanfare and sorrow. I am sure that even Bush is holding his missile at the bottom of this muddy river.
More to come soon. Please leave some comments!
-Nisha
After we left Chennai, we went to Calcutta to celebrate Durga Puja with my dad's extensive family. Durga puja is the largest puja celebrated in West Bengal. Community organizations prepare huge and colorful pandals which is a themed house. These temporary foam and cloth structures inside hold the elaborately decorated pratimas, or idols, and outside play host to a small carnival. The streets are lighted all around the pandal to guide the public. The thing to do during the main four days of the festival is to walk around touring pandals with your friends or family all night long (literally, our driver did not come back in the morning after pandal hopping all night). Like Mardi Gras where the question of the day is "which parades have you seen?", in Calcutta during Durga puja, it's "how many pandals have you visited?"
As with the Ganesh pratimas in Gujarat, the pandals for the Durga puja are all involved in fierce competition for prizes given away by the newspaper organizations and the city. Some even have political messages - one had a figure of Bush holding a missile while nearly being attacked by a lion. Durga was standing on the earth to symbolize peace. I believe this was in reference to the now-stalled US-India nuclear pact which the government of West Bengal, the Communist party, oppose out of solidarity with China. Anyway, all were great fun.
There are religious ceremonies that take place daily by the pandit (priest). on the 4th day, called Asthami, devotees assemble for a complex ceremony that occurs at a time prescribed by the astrologers. This year, it was 8:27 PM on Thursday the 18th. During the 45 minutes after 8:27, Durga will appear for a split second in the form of the pratima. Anyone seeing her at this time will have their prayers answered. It was actually an electrifying experience being among so many people who believed that they would see their beloved goddess come alive before their eyes in the form of the decorated Durga pratima. There is nothing I have witness in Christianity that could compare to the excitement of this part of the puja.
After this most holy period, then anyone can touch the pratima, not just the pandit. On the 5th day of the puja, the pratima is loaded on a truck and brought to be immersed in the Ganges, with great fanfare and sorrow. I am sure that even Bush is holding his missile at the bottom of this muddy river.
More to come soon. Please leave some comments!
-Nisha
Monday, October 15, 2007
Dandiya of my Dreams
Saturday we went to a Dandyia party hosted by the Gujarati community in Chennai. Dandyia is a dance done during the celebration of the Navratri, a holiday celebrated all around India in the beginning of October. My first experience with dandiya was in high-school. The large Baton Rouge Gujarati community hosted these at the LSU ball room several times during Navratri. Women and men would get dolled up in their finest saris, lengha cholis, and kurta pajamas. The dancing would begin with an intricate and energetic 6-beat dance around the dance floor to drum heavy music. The main event was the dandiya dance. Danced by all, the dance was preformed with wooden sticks in each hand. Dancers tap other dancer's sticks to the music to symbolize the fight between the goddess Durga and a mighty demon king. It is similar to a contra or square dance where two lines of dancers move an opposite direction from each other.
We arrived too early dressed in our best at 9, and met Arvin, the only other person there at the time. Turns out that he just moved back to Chennai after 15 years in the US, mostly in Porter Square, Cambridge. After killing some time getting coffee with him and his friends, we returned at 10:30 and the party really got started. Hundreds of people were pouring from chauffeured cars dressed in the most spectacular costumes. The female children, teenagers, and young women were dressed in elaborate lengha cholis dripping with jewels in their hair, ears, necks, hips, hands, wrists, ankles, and feet. Even the babies were lavishly decorated! The male children, teens, and young men were decked out in what looked like a short baby doll dress with matching dhoti. Now I see why the guys in my high school did not come dressed in traditional garb. Despite looking like they were wearing their younger sister’s dress, this unusual male outfit actually looked very dashing while twirling around the floor later in the night.
The music set up included 4 full drum sets, a keyboard, and a few singers. The first dance is the garba which is a high energy dance around the perimeter of the dance floor. I know two of this type and did dance for a while. However, just like in high school, once I got the hang of it again, the girls I danced behind switched to one I did not know leaving me there wondering what was going on. (I found out later that they take classes the month prior to the Navratri season.) Around 12:30, there was a dandiya for the teenagers and children. I suspect this was separate because the older teens and young adults get overly enthusiastic with the dandyia sticks. I'll bet that dancing with the kids caused many a gossipy mother to whisper next to her and say “can you imaging that grown woman, dancing with the children!” in scorn. Of all our time traveling, this was the first night I had to go to bed early since I was scheduled to deliver a lecture in the morning.
I had a fabulous time dancing with the kids and teenagers and ended up chatting with many. No one could talk for long though. They had to dance their best. There was a white-haired man in an all white kutra wandering among the dancers with a clipboard. In the center of a dancing hurricane, he looked like a bored judge at a dog show. I found out from them that he was the judge for the prize of king, queen, prince and princess of the festival. They are also judged on their costumes and dancing. Prizes range from a TV or DVD player to a 17,000 Rs ($450).
A nice woman we met emailed me some pictures I just posted on Flickr. We have not seen anything like this in India – where the men, women, and children are all free to enjoy themselves at the same time. In this nearly dry town, it was also the most memorable night out we have had without booze in awhile.
- Nisha
We arrived too early dressed in our best at 9, and met Arvin, the only other person there at the time. Turns out that he just moved back to Chennai after 15 years in the US, mostly in Porter Square, Cambridge. After killing some time getting coffee with him and his friends, we returned at 10:30 and the party really got started. Hundreds of people were pouring from chauffeured cars dressed in the most spectacular costumes. The female children, teenagers, and young women were dressed in elaborate lengha cholis dripping with jewels in their hair, ears, necks, hips, hands, wrists, ankles, and feet. Even the babies were lavishly decorated! The male children, teens, and young men were decked out in what looked like a short baby doll dress with matching dhoti. Now I see why the guys in my high school did not come dressed in traditional garb. Despite looking like they were wearing their younger sister’s dress, this unusual male outfit actually looked very dashing while twirling around the floor later in the night.
The music set up included 4 full drum sets, a keyboard, and a few singers. The first dance is the garba which is a high energy dance around the perimeter of the dance floor. I know two of this type and did dance for a while. However, just like in high school, once I got the hang of it again, the girls I danced behind switched to one I did not know leaving me there wondering what was going on. (I found out later that they take classes the month prior to the Navratri season.) Around 12:30, there was a dandiya for the teenagers and children. I suspect this was separate because the older teens and young adults get overly enthusiastic with the dandyia sticks. I'll bet that dancing with the kids caused many a gossipy mother to whisper next to her and say “can you imaging that grown woman, dancing with the children!” in scorn. Of all our time traveling, this was the first night I had to go to bed early since I was scheduled to deliver a lecture in the morning.
I had a fabulous time dancing with the kids and teenagers and ended up chatting with many. No one could talk for long though. They had to dance their best. There was a white-haired man in an all white kutra wandering among the dancers with a clipboard. In the center of a dancing hurricane, he looked like a bored judge at a dog show. I found out from them that he was the judge for the prize of king, queen, prince and princess of the festival. They are also judged on their costumes and dancing. Prizes range from a TV or DVD player to a 17,000 Rs ($450).
A nice woman we met emailed me some pictures I just posted on Flickr. We have not seen anything like this in India – where the men, women, and children are all free to enjoy themselves at the same time. In this nearly dry town, it was also the most memorable night out we have had without booze in awhile.
- Nisha
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Ganesh Chaturthi
We lucked out again on the festival scene. Many of you know that one of my life's dreams is to travel around the world and hit every major festival. This dream is somewhere beneath having a horse and above owing my own private island on the list.
Ganesh Chaturthi is the same festival that was ongoing in Diu as here. The basic festival is the same, but the Mumbai festival is about 1 lakh times larger (in India, 1 lakh = 100,000). I won't begin to understand the intricacies of the symbolism of the festival, but basically it is one celebrating the good luck Ganesh brings to the people of Mumbai. In both places, families obtain a Ganesh statue which they decorate and worship for anywhere between 1 - 13 days. One can buy the statue from many roadside stores. Seeing five 8-foot tall Ganesh figures sitting on the side of the road is a surreal sight.
The statues and pandals (the statue in a scene) of larger families and groups often have themes. Ahmedabad (a large city in the state of Gujarat and Nisha Bhatt's ancestral town) was the promotion of female children and their education. In Mumbai, it is the farmer suicide to highlight the poverty of rural India's farmers. A person my visit many pandals around the city, causing a line to form in one today up to 2.5km long. Some of the pandals are engaged in a fierce judging by the Times of India-picked celebrity staff. Often people will present gifts to Ganesh in hope for or in thanks of good luck (ie a child, or prosperity in business). One Mumbai couple presented a Ganesh idol a 9 lakh (900,000 Rs) gold sash in thanks of their new pregnancy after trying 11 years.
After the puja has been preformed twice daily, the family then parades the idol down the street. The men dance to the drums and keyboard of a hired band, the truck with the idol follows, with the women trailing in the back. I only saw women dancing in 2 of the 50 or so processions that night. Covered with and throwing pink, purple, and yellow powdered tempra paint, the men and boys dance themselves into a sweaty frenzy. The destination of this parade is the beautifully arched, nearly 10 km long Chowpatty Beach. After the musicians are abandoned, the procession has a solemn puja on the beach. Finally, the men of the families (and a few women) carry out the Ganesh idol into the Chowpatty bay for immersion in the night water. This sounds easier than it looks. The water is only about 2 feet deep for nearly 100 feet out. The larger idols need to be brought about 200 feet offshore before they can be immersed. Every year a few people drown.
I tried to capture this scene with pictures, but being the night, and trying to be respectful, I really could not. The black beach was covered with people chanting, trucks backing up, giant balloon sellers, and head massage guys. There was rain drainage and small waves lapping over disfigured idols washed ashore. In the water were hundreds of people for as far out as you cous see accompanied by the sound of drumming from all around the bay.
We watched this scene and then stood for a few hours around the parade route. Many people wanted to take a picture with us causing the cop to come and move the crowd along. Ian danced Punjabi-style with a few of the processions.
I'll try to load the pictures up, so far unsuccessful in Mumbai.
A great festival. Strangely, we were the only Western tourists!
- Nisha
Ganesh Chaturthi is the same festival that was ongoing in Diu as here. The basic festival is the same, but the Mumbai festival is about 1 lakh times larger (in India, 1 lakh = 100,000). I won't begin to understand the intricacies of the symbolism of the festival, but basically it is one celebrating the good luck Ganesh brings to the people of Mumbai. In both places, families obtain a Ganesh statue which they decorate and worship for anywhere between 1 - 13 days. One can buy the statue from many roadside stores. Seeing five 8-foot tall Ganesh figures sitting on the side of the road is a surreal sight.
The statues and pandals (the statue in a scene) of larger families and groups often have themes. Ahmedabad (a large city in the state of Gujarat and Nisha Bhatt's ancestral town) was the promotion of female children and their education. In Mumbai, it is the farmer suicide to highlight the poverty of rural India's farmers. A person my visit many pandals around the city, causing a line to form in one today up to 2.5km long. Some of the pandals are engaged in a fierce judging by the Times of India-picked celebrity staff. Often people will present gifts to Ganesh in hope for or in thanks of good luck (ie a child, or prosperity in business). One Mumbai couple presented a Ganesh idol a 9 lakh (900,000 Rs) gold sash in thanks of their new pregnancy after trying 11 years.
After the puja has been preformed twice daily, the family then parades the idol down the street. The men dance to the drums and keyboard of a hired band, the truck with the idol follows, with the women trailing in the back. I only saw women dancing in 2 of the 50 or so processions that night. Covered with and throwing pink, purple, and yellow powdered tempra paint, the men and boys dance themselves into a sweaty frenzy. The destination of this parade is the beautifully arched, nearly 10 km long Chowpatty Beach. After the musicians are abandoned, the procession has a solemn puja on the beach. Finally, the men of the families (and a few women) carry out the Ganesh idol into the Chowpatty bay for immersion in the night water. This sounds easier than it looks. The water is only about 2 feet deep for nearly 100 feet out. The larger idols need to be brought about 200 feet offshore before they can be immersed. Every year a few people drown.
I tried to capture this scene with pictures, but being the night, and trying to be respectful, I really could not. The black beach was covered with people chanting, trucks backing up, giant balloon sellers, and head massage guys. There was rain drainage and small waves lapping over disfigured idols washed ashore. In the water were hundreds of people for as far out as you cous see accompanied by the sound of drumming from all around the bay.
We watched this scene and then stood for a few hours around the parade route. Many people wanted to take a picture with us causing the cop to come and move the crowd along. Ian danced Punjabi-style with a few of the processions.
I'll try to load the pictures up, so far unsuccessful in Mumbai.
A great festival. Strangely, we were the only Western tourists!
- Nisha
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Leh Lowdown
We are departing tomorrow from Leh and heading back down into what I will call Normal India. Some quick thoughts on Leh:
FUN/INTERESTING EXPERIENCES - not including trekking
- Visiting Buddhist monasteries is always an interesting thing to do when you are in a mountain area such as this. They always kind of have this feeling of time standing still because you can never tell what is new and what is old, and often they have a lot of statues and paintings that are hundreds of years old just sitting in the inner rooms. That and the monks doing their chanting and drumming is pretty cool.
- Polo matches at the Leh polo ground are a really cool sports event. It is the yearly Ladakh Festival right now, so there is a Polo match just about every day. They take place at the polo ground, which is basically a giant sandlot with stone walls around about half of it and giant concrete steps around the other half that are used as bleachers. The goals are around 20 yards away from the end of the ground and there is an out of bounds area behind the goals, but other then that everything else is in play. This makes for interesting action because there are garbage cans, porta potties, a water truck, parked cars, scooters and a lot of the spectators on the playing field. So when the ball goes near the side walls there are usually people running for their lives, and then several horses gallop in to try to dig the ball out from under a parked car or whatever.
The first match that Nisha and I went to we were some of the people standing on the field, near the bathrooms, so for a while our plan was to run into the 3 foot wide space behind the bathroom every time the ball came near us. This plan fell apart when we ran back there to see the ball sitting at our feet. We proceeded to run like hell as a Ladakhi on a horse charged in behind the bathroom swinging a polo mallet. Needless to say next match we sat up on the concrete bleachers to watch the chaos from a safe distance.
The crowd is actually pretty big (about 1000 people I would say) and mostly locals, including quite a few monks in full dress. In the second match we saw, in addition to a close 4-3 game, an old monk and a dog nearly get trampled as they tried to cross the field, as well as numerous crowds of people running from a gang of horsemen. Quite entertaining.
- Today I rented one of the beater mountain bikes and decided to ride up the valley out of town. I looked at the map and saw that there was a high pass road back there, so just figured I would go uphill for as long as I could and then coast on back.
Little did I know that I had actually started riding up the worlds highest moterable road. I rode up this pristine ribbon of pavement for about one and a half hours, up to an elevation of 4300m and then coasted back in around 20 minutes. The road was a steady 5% grade (approx.), so the biking was not actually that difficult, but the views were incredible and there were only about 10 cars on it the whole time I was back there.
I was a little disappointed to have to turn around, but I was out of time and out of water. However, when I got back I found out that the pass is at 5600m, so I was only about half way there. Also, in a few KM up the road I would have had to show my inner line permit, since the pass is close to China, so I would have had to turn around anyway.
HIGHLIGHTS
- The landscape here is really incredible. The place is naturally a barren desert. But, in every valley a glacier fed stream runs, and these have been diverted to make the towns in the valleys appear like Tuscany. The towns have cute little fields with barley and livestock as well as tall skinny trees and well kept houses. Then at the edge of town, back to desert. The effect is stunning.
- This is one of the least congested and best kept parts of India. It is still India, but the problems of dirt, overcrowding and petty crime are as under control here as they will ever be.
- Food here has been quite good. Although every restaurant tries to serve at least 5 cuisines, from a list of Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, Italian, Continental and Israeli. They have been pretty good, but a little specialization would be in order. A lot of restaurants have rooftop terraces as well.
LOWLIGHTS
- It is pretty touristy. The center of Leh is crawling with tourists, mostly of the weird European variety. There is real stuff for the real people here, but in the center of town you would think that only stores are ones that sell pashminas and trinkets for tourists.
- This is a difficult place to see for a few days because of the altitude. Nisha and I are really only starting to feel normal up here, and we have been here a week. This is probably not that big a deal for people who slowly come up the road, but it is an issue when you fly in.
- It is a pain to get here. We were planning on taking buses and trains out, but it takes around 4 days of travel, not including stopping in the towns on the way to get back to Delhi. So in the end we ended up flying both ways, which was more then we wanted to spend.
So, overall I would recommend this as a place to go, for those with the time and the money. But it is really more on an adventure sport playground then the real India, for whatever that is worth.
FUN/INTERESTING EXPERIENCES - not including trekking
- Visiting Buddhist monasteries is always an interesting thing to do when you are in a mountain area such as this. They always kind of have this feeling of time standing still because you can never tell what is new and what is old, and often they have a lot of statues and paintings that are hundreds of years old just sitting in the inner rooms. That and the monks doing their chanting and drumming is pretty cool.
- Polo matches at the Leh polo ground are a really cool sports event. It is the yearly Ladakh Festival right now, so there is a Polo match just about every day. They take place at the polo ground, which is basically a giant sandlot with stone walls around about half of it and giant concrete steps around the other half that are used as bleachers. The goals are around 20 yards away from the end of the ground and there is an out of bounds area behind the goals, but other then that everything else is in play. This makes for interesting action because there are garbage cans, porta potties, a water truck, parked cars, scooters and a lot of the spectators on the playing field. So when the ball goes near the side walls there are usually people running for their lives, and then several horses gallop in to try to dig the ball out from under a parked car or whatever.
The first match that Nisha and I went to we were some of the people standing on the field, near the bathrooms, so for a while our plan was to run into the 3 foot wide space behind the bathroom every time the ball came near us. This plan fell apart when we ran back there to see the ball sitting at our feet. We proceeded to run like hell as a Ladakhi on a horse charged in behind the bathroom swinging a polo mallet. Needless to say next match we sat up on the concrete bleachers to watch the chaos from a safe distance.
The crowd is actually pretty big (about 1000 people I would say) and mostly locals, including quite a few monks in full dress. In the second match we saw, in addition to a close 4-3 game, an old monk and a dog nearly get trampled as they tried to cross the field, as well as numerous crowds of people running from a gang of horsemen. Quite entertaining.
- Today I rented one of the beater mountain bikes and decided to ride up the valley out of town. I looked at the map and saw that there was a high pass road back there, so just figured I would go uphill for as long as I could and then coast on back.
Little did I know that I had actually started riding up the worlds highest moterable road. I rode up this pristine ribbon of pavement for about one and a half hours, up to an elevation of 4300m and then coasted back in around 20 minutes. The road was a steady 5% grade (approx.), so the biking was not actually that difficult, but the views were incredible and there were only about 10 cars on it the whole time I was back there.
I was a little disappointed to have to turn around, but I was out of time and out of water. However, when I got back I found out that the pass is at 5600m, so I was only about half way there. Also, in a few KM up the road I would have had to show my inner line permit, since the pass is close to China, so I would have had to turn around anyway.
HIGHLIGHTS
- The landscape here is really incredible. The place is naturally a barren desert. But, in every valley a glacier fed stream runs, and these have been diverted to make the towns in the valleys appear like Tuscany. The towns have cute little fields with barley and livestock as well as tall skinny trees and well kept houses. Then at the edge of town, back to desert. The effect is stunning.
- This is one of the least congested and best kept parts of India. It is still India, but the problems of dirt, overcrowding and petty crime are as under control here as they will ever be.
- Food here has been quite good. Although every restaurant tries to serve at least 5 cuisines, from a list of Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, Italian, Continental and Israeli. They have been pretty good, but a little specialization would be in order. A lot of restaurants have rooftop terraces as well.
LOWLIGHTS
- It is pretty touristy. The center of Leh is crawling with tourists, mostly of the weird European variety. There is real stuff for the real people here, but in the center of town you would think that only stores are ones that sell pashminas and trinkets for tourists.
- This is a difficult place to see for a few days because of the altitude. Nisha and I are really only starting to feel normal up here, and we have been here a week. This is probably not that big a deal for people who slowly come up the road, but it is an issue when you fly in.
- It is a pain to get here. We were planning on taking buses and trains out, but it takes around 4 days of travel, not including stopping in the towns on the way to get back to Delhi. So in the end we ended up flying both ways, which was more then we wanted to spend.
So, overall I would recommend this as a place to go, for those with the time and the money. But it is really more on an adventure sport playground then the real India, for whatever that is worth.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Nipo-brasileiro
So last night was yet another night of random occurrences and extraordinary chance events that converged for an incredible night. Andy and Ian came to drop me off in a hostel in this normally sleepy neighborhood when re ran into the Asakusa Samba festival - I kid you not. I had heard that there were many Japanese that emigrated to Brazil from some of the school teachers we met, but I had no idea of the extent of influence on the Japanese culture. There are some 1.5 million Japanese living in Brazil or claim Japanese heritage. Apparently , many settled there after WWII. Now many Japanese-Brazilians, called Nipo-brasileiroin Portuguese, are returning to Japan for more opportunities. Interestingly, it was the Japanese immigrants that gave rise to Jiu Jitsu in Brazil.
The 28th annual samba festival held in Asakusa was incredible in its size. There were some 30 odd krewes or troupes that paraded in the streets. Each parading troupe had several samba dancers, a large group of marching dancers, a full samba band compete with multiple singers, and a man-powered float. The crowds were huge, but disconcertingly made up of many men with video and still cameras aimed at the girls. Besides sky-high school girl skirts, Japanese don't normally show that much skin which explains the throngs of old men. I was stunned at the reactions of the crowds though. Aside from the grinning old men, not a single onlooker was dancing, swaying, tapping their toes, or having any other emotion show. I guess it:s pretty typical Japanese that I have come to realize - totally stoic, unless alcohol is involved. These people looked they were at a funeral procession. Well, I didn't let that stop me from enjoying the music as it should be enjoyed. I was the sole dancer in the crowd for the entire parade. Andy and I had great spots near the competition judging of the parade, check out some of the photos.
Later that night, we again stumbled into heaven - this time sushi heaven. After traveling to many countries, one principle about lines is universal: if there are natives standing in line to a restaurant you had better get in it also. Though we had to wait in a line for about 20 minutes, this conveyor belt sushi restaurant was everything that a non-Japanese speaker could want. Color coded plates held scallops, 3 kinds of tuna, salmon, fried squid, mackrel, brain (I could not tell from which animal, but we ate it anyway), prawn, sweet rock shrimp, clams.... It went on and on until were were all stuffed, a stack of plates in front of us.
To top off the perfect night in Tokyo, we rented a karoke box and sang our hearts out. Then we partied with the Brazilians in some basement bar. Now off to India, no girls in thongs there....
The 28th annual samba festival held in Asakusa was incredible in its size. There were some 30 odd krewes or troupes that paraded in the streets. Each parading troupe had several samba dancers, a large group of marching dancers, a full samba band compete with multiple singers, and a man-powered float. The crowds were huge, but disconcertingly made up of many men with video and still cameras aimed at the girls. Besides sky-high school girl skirts, Japanese don't normally show that much skin which explains the throngs of old men. I was stunned at the reactions of the crowds though. Aside from the grinning old men, not a single onlooker was dancing, swaying, tapping their toes, or having any other emotion show. I guess it:s pretty typical Japanese that I have come to realize - totally stoic, unless alcohol is involved. These people looked they were at a funeral procession. Well, I didn't let that stop me from enjoying the music as it should be enjoyed. I was the sole dancer in the crowd for the entire parade. Andy and I had great spots near the competition judging of the parade, check out some of the photos.
Later that night, we again stumbled into heaven - this time sushi heaven. After traveling to many countries, one principle about lines is universal: if there are natives standing in line to a restaurant you had better get in it also. Though we had to wait in a line for about 20 minutes, this conveyor belt sushi restaurant was everything that a non-Japanese speaker could want. Color coded plates held scallops, 3 kinds of tuna, salmon, fried squid, mackrel, brain (I could not tell from which animal, but we ate it anyway), prawn, sweet rock shrimp, clams.... It went on and on until were were all stuffed, a stack of plates in front of us.
To top off the perfect night in Tokyo, we rented a karoke box and sang our hearts out. Then we partied with the Brazilians in some basement bar. Now off to India, no girls in thongs there....
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