Festivals

Okinawa has a different festival pretty much every weekend, in different places around the island. This weekend we went to one that was very close to base and is supposed to be "the biggest Eisa festival on island." Anyways, it was actually two festivals running side by side; an Eisa festival (Eisa is Okinawan drumming, and usually features a lot of dancing and drumming), and Orion Beer Festival.

A tradition at festivals for the Japanese culture is for women and girls to wear Yukatas, and Men and boys to wear Jinbei.  SO, I went with a couple of friends to buy Yukatas at a nearby mall, and were then dressed up by a friend that knew how to tie the belt (see in the picture below). It was fun to wear one, but definitely uncomfortable after a few hours (there are actually 5 belts tied around my waist; it started feeling like i was wearing a corset)!

 Ouch, that's tight

 Getting wrapped in the final belt

ta-da!

a Jinbei

Upon reaching the festival, we found food vendors, games, and lots of Orion. The Eisa dancers were performing in the center of a large stadium, but you could not sit in the stands without a wrist band (that we didn't have). We walked around for a bit, ventured into the beer festival (300 yen for draft Orion), and got some food. American military members are not allowed to drink off base so we didn't stay in the beer fest area for too long... it was way too crowded and waaay too hot, anyways!

 Corey played a game and won me a prize!

 the back of a Yukata

 Corn Dog

 my prize that Corey won me was a samurai sword!

 Remington didnt want to hold the sword....