New Leaf Festival
On Saturday, at 9am, we went to Citizen’s Hall or ‘Shiminkaikan’. As we passed Nishimon Street, I noticed there were people preparing stalls of different kinds such as foods, flowers, toys, etc. When we arrived at Citizen’s Hall, we proceeded to 2nd floor of the building, while my husband was carrying my two paintings. We set up my paintings together with some of my Japanese co-artist. There were many paintings displayed and in other rooms there were photography and colored pencil drawing exhibits. As I looked at my paintings hanging on the wall, I felt delighted because I would become part of the Festival.
On Sunday, we went back to Nishimon Street where the Festival was being held. The street was closed to vehicles. There were only people walking to and fro on the street, flocking to every stall like bees. As we walked down the street, we found YokohamaJapan's second largest city and the capital of Kanagawa prefecture.’s popular group of ‘Taiko’ drummers, performing at the side of the street. The group consists of 8 members, two of them were women. A taiko drum a is stick percussion instrument. As I watched them perform, I noticed that they seemed to beat the drum in full force. They raised their two wooden sticks right above them and beat the drum either at the center (red beats) or edge (blue beats). I was blown away by their perfect performance. I witnessed that it was a tiring exhibition.
After that, we saw a float which was carried by men parading on the street. There were many food booths representing the food specialties from different parts of Japan and foods from foreign countries. Because it was already lunch time, we bought foods from the Philippines booth and ate it in the parking lot where many people laid their picnic blankets to have their lunch. After getting full we went to buy flowers from one of the flower stalls there. Finally, we went to Citizen’s hall to see once again my paintings and other paintings hanging on the wall for the exhibit. There were many people looking at our paintings and looked impressed. At 5pm, the festival was done and the number of people is slowly dwindling. We went home with my two paintings.
It was my first time to witness festival in Japan and I was shocked of the number of people gathered in the place.
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