Bon Odori

The Bon festival in Japan occurs during the hottest part of the summer, which is now for most people (large Japanese communities in Argentina and Brazil celebrate during their southern hemisphere summer months). It is a Buddhist festival to honor the deceased, where the "odori" part of this festival basically means "dance", and  it's meant for everyone to take part. Tonight was the Bon Odori festival in San Diego, and it sure was popular.

Everyone was dancing, at least those who knew the dances, which did not include me.

There was a taiko group, drummers, who were really exciting to watch. Even car alarms were going off.

 And there were singers in the center, on a yagura, meaning tower or turret.

(I find the legs coming out of the lanterns kinda funny)

The food was excellent (and cheap!), and it was my first time to try taiyaki, a fish-shaped sort of waffle with red bean paste inside. Amazing! I really want one of the fish-shaped waffle makers they used too...

This is someone else's taiyaki. I did not take a photo of mine.

Then I had fun in the resale shop. I found some lovely orange ceramic ochawan (tea/rice cups) and two little sake glasses, since I love sake!

I figured $8 was worth all of this, not to mention the money was going to help with the tsunami troubles in Japan.
 
 We were also able to go inside the temple. It was beautiful. It was set on fire during WWII, and part of the altar was burned.