Here is another catch-up post... this time from my father's visit in October - and features all his photos!
The longer you live in a place, the less you seem to see of it - for me anyway. When I first arrived over 17 years ago every free day was spent exploring somewhere new and every festival was researched and attended. Now our life seems to be so caught up with ferrying kids to sporting events or school functions that there is very little time left over for venturing off to somewhere new for the day. Having visitors helps to make this possible though and this year I finally managed to go to a festival in my own town that I have always meant to go to, but never quite remembered in time!
Kitsuki City holds a "Moon Viewing Festival" every October where the whole town works together to put over 8,000 paper and bamboo lanterns filled with candles all around the old Samurai Town. People are then free to wander around and enjoy the fantastic atmosphere. Different groups make different displays and in some of the old samurai houses there are performances of traditional Japanese music as well as tea ceremony. In fact the whole thing started when one group of women asked if they could use one of the old houses to do their tea ceremony on the night of the full moon in October. From there the festival grew and grew into what it is now. It is hard to capture the atmosphere in photos, but if anyone is in this area in October I really suggest going for a wander. It isn't as big as some of the other similar moon viewing festivals around the place, but there are far less people to bump into!
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