May 25: Festival and Karaoke

 May 25th was the day of the Yukosai Festival at OMU Nakamozu. A lot of us met up at the main gate with a few of the OMU Buddies, and then split up into smaller groups and began to walk around. It was very interesting to see how much was going on at the festival. Right past the entrance was a little flea market where many of the local residents had set up tents selling their old clothes and other belongings.

Past that area was a lot of student run activities and stalls. The first thing past the flea market was a stage where many performances were held at. One of which was a koto performance by the Japanese Music Club that we got to meet previously on May 16th. A lot of us watched that performance and it was very good.

The main walkway had many student run food stalls. There was a wide selection of food including many things like shaved ice, karaage, takoyaki, and many other options.

There were many other activities and performances you could find around. Inside one of the buildings were a lot of activities that could be enjoyed by little kids and families, since many of them were walking around the festival. There were also many band performances at the various stages set up around the festival. Some of the other stages also put up things like skits and small game show performances.

After the festival, since the group I was with mostly dissolved, I decided to walk around the Nakamozu area since it would be the last day we were there. I walked around a neighborhood with a lot of nice buildings and appreciated the difference in Japanese architecture compared to American neighborhoods.

After walking around for a bit, I went back to the hotel. Some of us had planned to do karaoke for this night in advance so I got ready to go to that. We met up at around 7 and bought some snacks and drinks for the karaoke. It was very fun and we were there for about 2 hours before heading back to the hotel and saying bye to the OMU Buddies who were with us at karaoke.