Tokasan Festival

This weekend Hiroshima held their annual Tokasan Festival. People put on their Yukatas (summer kimonos) in order to go downtown and enjoy food, parades, summer bon dancing and games. It was very similar to "Las fiestas patronales" in Puerto Rico, except they served all kids of weird food!!! Yes they had my favorite: octopus!!! love it!!! Not!!! What ever happened to good old hamburgers?
People line up at the Tokasan (Enryuji) Temple, a mixed Buddhist and Shinto temple/shrine, which is adorned with red lanterns to pray for good luck by throwing a money offering into the shrine's coin box and clapping their hands.
Here are some people praying inside the temple.

On Saturday night we went to hang out and check out the festival. Along the way we found some of our friends in the middle of the mob of people. Now look carefully at the picture because this is how you properly wear a Yukata.
On Sunday I decided to join my neighbors in the fun and get dressed up. This is my best attempt at wearing a Yukata. Please feel free to laugh because I had no idea how to put this on, so my neighbor's mom (who is 100% Japanese) fixed it up before we left.
Here I am with the kids. Arent they the cutest (besides your own children) you have ever seen?
The kids had a blast and so did I!!! Everything was new and fun to them. We even had a chance to join in the bon dancing, here is a video:


I can't take a video of myself so your just going to have to imagine how "well" I followed the steps. I did find out one thing in the process, that the steps are simple because the yukatas are so tightly wrapped that you can bearly move!!! I guess I'll have better luck next year.