Hanamaki Matsuri 2017

Four years ago I wrote about the Hanamaki Matsuri, a three-day festival in my wife's hometown in Iwate Prefecture. Since then, a few of the food offerings have changed, but not much else. Unless you count the fact that, in 2015, the event actually made it into the Guinness Book of World Records with the most mikoshi on display at a single location (114).

This year there were only 104 mikoshi, but it's still the same good time it always was.

That last picture is from the shishiodori (deer dance), in which a hundred men and women in scary, predatory deer costumes jump around while playing noisy drums. It's probably the single coolest thing about Iwate Prefecture.