Obon Festival

There are two major holidays in Japan, Obon and New Years.  We got a chance to experience the Obon festival last weekend.  Obon is an annual Buddhist event for commemorating one's ancestors. It is believed that each year during obon, the ancestors' spirits return to this world in order to visit their relatives.  It's similar to Mexico's day of the dead.  Although we find it fruitless to worship our ancestors instead of an all powerful God, we still were able to find some similarities with the practice and share how we pay our respects to our ancestors in our culture.  It never benefits to alienate people but instead find ways to align with them.  We both clean the graves of our relatives and leave flowers.  

Traditionally in Japan, lanterns are hung in front of houses to guide the ancestors' spirits, obon dances (bon odori) are performed, graves are visited and food offerings are made at house altars and temples.  At the end of Obon, floating lanterns are put into rivers, lakes and seas in order to guide the spirits back into their world.  We didn't see any floating lanterns so I hope the spirits made it back ok.

Here's some pics from the festival:

Traditional Obon Kimono

We snagged a great spot on the pier and had a picnic dinner.  It was a great spot to watch the fireworks show after dark.

A couple of happy kids!

Eating noodles in humid 103 degree heat is almost impossible but little David shows it can be done.

Chris & Yuka share a laugh.

They had a dance competition the kids enjoyed.

This was a pic off the web that shows part of the parade honoring the ancestors.

I highly recommend the chilli cheese fries.

The fireworks show was great, just long, it lasted about 50 minutes.