Hakata Dontaku Festival

So this post is supremely late. Sorry! I've been really busy lately. But here it finally is.

I went to Hakata Dontaku Festival over Golden Week, which is apparently one of the bigger, more famous festivals in Japan. There were certainly a lot of people there for it. The festival goes on for two days, and though I was only there for one afternoon, it was still a lot of fun.

The main event I saw was the parade. There were lots of big wooden floats that people carried, the same as at my local Gion Festival. One looked like this:

It did this really cool thing I've got a video of here:




Before the main parade, the smaller sections apparently did their own mini parades throughout the surrounding area. Here's one marching through an outdoor shopping plaza:



And then there was the main parade. It was made up of all sorts of different stuff. There were people marching:

There were floats that were driven:

Floats that were pulled:

And floats that were carried:


Guys dressed as samurai showed up:













They made some noise:



Ladies danced with fans:



I don't even know what this guy is, but he danced too. It was really funny.



And I don't have much to add to that. It was all fun to watch, and I'm glad I went.