Takamatsu festival

With Tokyo stint over I headed to Takamatsu where I would be staying 3 days(with trips to nearbyish Tokushima). Departure was bit early but I wanted to be at the city bright and early. And I figured I can sleep at the 4h shinkansen trip without issue.

Trip itself wasn't that interesting. Apart from bit chatting by skype with a friend I slept and slept some more. Past two days have been of little sleep and that Mount Fuji climb is still taxing me. Speaking of that my legs are quite stiff right now...

Also that walking stick is bloody inconvenient and with bags it's bit of bummer getting around. I need to sort at least stick out of my way...

 Arriving to the Shikoku for the first time(things going as willing I'm spending here hell of a lot time in year after next year...) I was greeted with views that were quite different to Tokyo, Kyoto etc.

First thing in order was leaving packs to hotel. I am NOT carrying those around until I can check in! Thankfully pre-check in pack leaving is possible in this hotel as well. With this next thing in order was that walking stick. I want it out of my hands ASAP! I had checked where post office was but got bit lost. Not wanting to spend battery on phone(I try to save that where possible) I settled for bit hard to read local map. Gave up eventually, booted phone, turned 180 degrees around and saw...sign "post this way". Wonder what locals thought when I burst out laughing suddenly but I just found this too funny.

Post office staff were understandably quite surprised. Not often I imagine somebody comes around wanting to mail 120cm or so stick of wood! Alas newspapers or whatever they put over it pushed weight past some margin making postage cost 1800 yen rather than 1500 yen...

Well I was expecting about double that so not complaining.

Also of note was that I saw the japan-korea relation normalization memorial stamps I had seen from news. Considered buying but budget is bit low now so need to save up and stick was expensive enough for today.

With this I headed for first order of business. Takamatsu castle area!

 First views approaching it.

First views after paying the 200yen entrance fee.

 Takamatsu used to be lot closer to sea and was considered(according to promotional texts in the castle anyway ;) best Japanese castle in sea. Bit further away now with land reclaim but still quite a nice moat around.

You could get into boat trip like this. Might have been nice but list was quite booked, bit expensive(see above) and I had more things I wanted to see today. Not sure I would have had time for the slowish boat trip.

Old bridge. Aparantely built for easy demolition under attack.

Some sort of look-out tower?

 Nice view from above it!

There was also this big park in the area.

 The park contained this "river with no water". Interesting thing to build. Prefer real waters though. Especially on this heat. Just watching this made me feel parched!

Now this was more like it. Watching this steam blowing up made me feel more fresh!

Too bad no entrance allowed :( I like these type of building look. Would like to go inside one. Anybody know where visitors WOULD be allowed to do that?

Bonzai sale! If only I could get one to Finland in safety...Then again I suck at gardening. Would be dead in a days!

 One Japanese I met likes touching these wooden surfaces and I have got into habit. This felt quite unusual. Not smooth but not really rough either.

In olden days sea would have been better visible they say. Then again with the cloudy and foggy day(weather not good today) not much visible anyway.

With this I dropped in Ramen shop. Mistake actually I think. I'm fairly sure this is town for UDON and at least there's Udon shops everywhere. Should have went there. Ah well. Food at least was good once I managed to use the ticket vending machine. Not used to those!

Also had 5 gyoza's again which don't show.

With this I went to hotel for a while. And then it was for the main show of the day. Takamatsu festival. I had already checked that no fireworks today like I thought(it's tomorrow...BUMMER! Mistake here. Have tickets for awaodori for tomorrow so miss fireworks afterall...And I was looking so forward to seeing Japanese fireworks. BUMMER!) but festival was on central park closish to hotel.

 Sure sign I was getting closer to festival. With also soon steady growing stream of yukata clad women I would have known SOMETHING of interesting(likely summer festival) was going on here. That or girls in Takamatsu are lot more fond of yukatas than in Tokyo.

 Entering the park. Seems bit crowded and it's not even official start time yet(though plenty of foodstalls etc going on)

Crowded...

 I ran into this and since I had read about Yosakoi dances that were supposed to be performed in Takamatsu I thought this might be the place.

 Well wrong. Instead these kindergardeners came to do taiko drumperformance. Cute!

 Then some dancing.

 Some other bit older girls danced.

 Yet more. As it is quite a lot of performances from kindergardeners to teenagers were performing on this stage. Ended up not seeing yosakoi(wonder if I misunderstood something or I just missed the place) but seeing quite a lot here and elsewhere.

They were handing simple fans like these for free. Actually bloody nice way to give yourself bit feel of coolness. It was quite hot and humid. Oh and patchy rain. Didn't seem to reduce nuber of people though...

And as expected there was chipped ice with suryp available. Had this on saturday on my friends place. Bit tougher ice than friends version. Think I prefer her ice and this taste(strawberry). And it wasn't QUITE as hot by now that this would have had full effect. Rather just humid. Still good but it felt better on saturday.

On other area there was coming up something else so I stayed here eating my chipped ice.

Well SOME dance. Clothes look yosakoi'ish but dance didn't seem at all. More slower and graceful? than the energic dance I saw on february. This reminds one I saw in Ueno on last trip.

Some more photos of the performances. Loved every one of them. Always nice see kids perform with enthusiasm.

 Guess these were all same dance group/etc and doing one show with everyone after each sub-group had done their show. That's the idea I got from the commentators anyway.

Bit more on grown up side. Starting to feel lot more like the idol concerts. Except these ones don't sing but just dance(and songs were often english ones at that).

While switching between two areas(other one seemed to have mostly talking events though so I spent less time there) I saw this. What had just happened? Why is that big fluffy thing there?

One event that DID happen there that got my attention a bit was karaoke contest. This one was 12 years and seems she was quite nervous in pre-competition interview :D Poor little kid. Participiants seemed to vary from this 12 year to grandmothers.

And second entree.

But with rain, me being tired and not having good spot for this I called it quits after 2 hours. I should be getting more of Takamatsuri festival on friday though.

With this I went on search for coin laundry hotel had mentioned. But forgot to take address with me so was only searching by memory and failed unsurprisingly(turned out I gave up bit too early with the road I was following and then thought it was road below in map...). Hopefully I can find it tomorrow morning. Running bit short on clothes and I would like to spend friday night seeing more of festival than doing laundry!

Returned to hotel and here's btw shot of it. Quite decent. One oddity though is that there was guides to two adult video channels(that you need to buy one day paycard for 1000 yen). Don't think that sort of guide is that visibly in Finnish hotels! Guess Japanese are bit more relaxed about that but whatabout if family comes in and there's kids in them? Or is these put in only for singles that book? (or groups without kids). There ARE kids in this hotel. As it is when I came back there was group with kids coming together.

Not that I really get offended by this. Actually I was just amused at it when I opted to look what guide pamphlets they had next to the tv. Did not expect that one :D

(and no I can honestly say I did NOT get that paycard ;) Ain't paying 1000 yen for some adult channels. Think I can find better use for that 1000 yen. As it is I WERE to want adult entertaiment stuff and were willing to pay 1000 yen or so I would be better off going to book-off and get dvd or two from there. Odds are good there's those available for that price range and that you can watch as often as you want. This would be available until 11AM next morning only)

Tomorrow is figuring out cloth issue and then heading to Tokushima for awaodori. Have tickets for two events there. Looking forward for seeing some dancing! Heard a lot about the awaodori so looking forward to it!