Throwing Food Festival

One morning I woke up with a loud bang. I thought I might of been dreaming about the fourth of July but fireworks in the morning? It sounded just like fireworks I thought. So I look out the window and decide that I went back in time in Japan.

As some of you know, I live right next to shrine slash temple. It is fairly large with some very nice Japanese shrubbery. I could not figure out at first what they were doing wearing such classy gear shooting guns into the air which created a huge plume of smoke. It was incredibly loud and our good old dog Nobu was very scared. Not wanting to miss a great photo opportunity, Jessica and I went on over to see what was going one. As we approached all of the guys in uniform started marching out of the shrine over into the streets in a mini parade.



I was very amused by them. However, as they passed us by, they seemed more amused by us Gaijin (outlander/foreigner). They all waved to us with joy as they passed us by. Thinking that all of that fiasco was over, we started our way back home. On the way we were able to talk to our neighbor who was also out and they told us to come back at 16:00 o'clock (everything is in 24 hour time, so around 4:00pm) to see some more. We waited until 4:00pm and were surprised by the amount of people who have already gathered.

Past the crowd you can see some white smoke so I cam closer to have a look.
The person loaded whatever gun that is with gunpowder and then shot it into the air. You would be able to see better if it wasn't for the fact that this old ladies head is in the way. However I forgot to charge the camera and therefore had only a limited amount of pictures left to take. The crowd started to get thicker with old people and children alike.

Here is a shot of the temple building in all of its large roof glory.

We noticed that in front of the crowd was a big scaffold with bowls filled with food on top. Risky children tried many things to try to grab some. Some would jump, some would hit the scaffolding and shook it while others tried to make themselves taller....

Everyone around us had plastic bags and it became clear what was about to come. The head guy climbed up to beat the big drum which would start our "fun".

More guys stepped up next to all of the bowls filled with what we now identified as mochi balls! This would be exciting and Jessica was happy because our neighbor gave us a plastic bag!

The old dude hit the drum and a riot would ensue. The men on top started throwing mochi balls wrapped in plastic everywhere! They threw far, near, and even teased everyone with their tall order pride. We tried our best to catch as many as we can but we soon realized how difficult it would be. We thought our competition would be the kids but to our surprise it was the very quick old people. They would grab those mochi balls off the ground as though they practiced ninjitsu. I tried to grab one off of the ground but a women stepped on my arm to prevent me from doing so. So I lifted my arm to knock her over! Sure, now you must think I am the bad guy knocking a poor women over. However, you will laugh at me and see because the women got the mochi ball anyway! The same one I was after. Even after falling down, her ninja speed surpassed mine. Get mochi or die trying was the motto. You might be thinking though "how hard can it be to catch these?". Well, they were solid, not squishy. It was about the same shape, size, and hardness of a baseball! Jessica caught one on her chest but got the wind hit out of her. It was clear we were amateurs at this event. But after it was all over we were satisfied.

The sun was up, the sky clear, and a bag filled with heavy solid mochi.
Here is a nice picture of some of our bounty.


I bit into one thinking to myself "This taste like crap, and its as hard." One of the Chinese girls corrected us and told us they needed to be heated up. So we put one in the microwave and watched it grow twice the size!

With a little soy sauce and sugar we were set to go.


That was my wakeup call. Living next to a temple is not peaceful, not at all. Please leave your comments and keep an eye out for more posts. Keep in touch!