The Town Festival

This is the season of festivals. Every week there is some kind of festival somewhere in Hokkaido.  This week there is a weeklong festival in our town. I don’t know what the festival is celebrating, but it might be flowers.  After all the snow we had this past winter, I think flowers are a good thing to celebrate.

Friday night we went to the festival, which is in the downtown area near the train station to see the parade. It rained and the parade was cancelled, so we ate some festival food and looked around, then went home.

Yesterday we went back to the festival in the daytime. There were stages at both ends of the festival area.  We saw dance groups performing at one stage.  It may have been some kind of competition.  We never know about those things.

At the other stage there were some karate demonstrations.

We saw children in cute costumes.

Dogs were dressed in their best outfits also.

There was a little zoo with an assortment of animals. It was kind of sad, but kind of fascinating.  I couldn’t not look at it. 

Children could get into an enclosure with a giant turtle, some rabbits, and I think the other animals are guinea pigs.

There was a tub of baby chickens and some baby goats.

Some zoo keepers let children hold the big snakes.

There were some reptiles in big glass cages.

They had birds of prey.  Owls are very interesting for me.

There was one little penguin and a bigger bird and an enclosure full of ducks.

 

You could even buy some little creatures, but we didn't.

There were a lot of other festival/carnival things going on throughout the day.

Tonight we will watch the fireworks at the edge of town. Every good festival needs fireworks.  Don’t you think so?