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It's been a while since I've posted! Life has been pretty busy here (like insanely busy!) but I promise there will be posts coming soon!

Tonight was the Souhei Matsuri at Yunoyama Onsen and Halley was kind enough to invite me and a few others (Payal and Angel) to join in! We got to be official shrine carriers! How cool is that?

After getting to the mountain we were ushered into this room where we changed into our super cool festival attire - a black and purple jacket, yellow sash, tabi and a purple and yellow headband. We all looked very cool :) We were carrying the girls' shrine up the mountain and the boys shrine would arrive separate.

The ceremony started with a quick blessing by a Buddhist priest. Then, we had a few quick sips of sake, picked up our shrine and started heading down the mountain.

There were about 10 of us carrying it altogether but it was still pretty heavy! I'm not sure what they put in there but hopefully it was something good (most likely sake).

As we carried it we had to shout "Waisho!" or blow our whistles as loud as we could. Every so often we'd stop in front of a hotel or a business and they'd give a ticket or money to our leader. Then we'd shout "Shoubai Hanshou!" 3 times as loud as we could. I'm not 100% sure what it means, but it seemed like it was a prayer for good business or good luck. One guy asked us to say a prayer for his eiken exam (English language proficiency exam) so we shoubai hanshou-ed him. Another guy gave us a man ($100) to say a prayer for him so we said 5!

Along the way there were a few different places for us to rest and stop. Some of them offered us snacks and tea, others offered oden (Japanese soup) and beer. I think I had a few beers in total and maybe a couple cups of sake. It really helped keep me warm since the rain was drizzling down the whole time!

When we finally reached our destination we made two loops around the fire and then said a bunch of shoubai hanshous. Once our job was done we were giving tons of free food and beer we could enjoy while watching the rest of the festivities. The boy's float made its way up the mountain shortly after, carried by about 50 young, good looking men. If I thought our float carrying duties were hard, it was nothing compared to what they had to do! Their float was ON FIRE! A giant, massive ball of flame. They carried it around the circle, same as us, with giant pieces of burning ash falling all over them. I don't know how they did it! It was so bad ass.

We all celebrated after with beers and pictures and fireworks. It was a really fun night and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to take part. I just wish it hadn't been raining. I think it could have been perfect if the rain had held off. Ah well, can't win 'em all. I hope I get the chance to participate again next year ;)

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