Thursday, June 28, 2007

Hyakumangoku Matsuri- The Parade



The first weekend in June sees the annual celebration of the entry of Lord Maeda into Kanazawa to take control of the Kaga Feudal Fief.



The festivities begin with a parade, but this year I skipped the school marching bands, and waited till the Acrobatic Firemen show before I unlimbered my camera.





The actor playing Lord Maeda was a fairly famous individual here, so the crowd went kind of wild when he showed up. It was kind of funny actually, Michael and I standing there non plussed, while Sachiko and Yukie were super excited. Of course, if he had been Bruce Willis or somebody from my childhood then *I* would have been the one bouncing up and down.

3 comments:

sam said...

Was Maeda the last daimyo to be in charge of Kaga, or was he just the most positively-regarded?

Travelingrant said...

Argh blogger messed up the link formating. Surf on over to Wikipedia and search Kanazawa for an enlightening look at the history of Kaga and the radical Buddhist monks that ruled before Maeda showed up, as well as a view of him as fourth in power and popularity after 'the big three.' (Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and of course the man himself Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Zach said...

I actually saw that festival on my first trip to Japan in 2002 I watched what's his name ride by on his fancy horse from the 2nd floor of the now non-existant MOS Burger. That was the first time I ever had MOS Burger. It was so delicious. I wrote a haiku today about MOS Burger and sent it to a cute Japanese girl. She then went to MOS burger and ate so much that she skipped dinner. In summary Maeda changed Japan and MOS Burger changed people.