embarrassing photos

Y-chan took a lot of photos at last week's festival that made mine look pretty lame by comparison, so I'm going to swallow my pride, along with the last bits of the marinaded octopus that Y bought and that we have feasted upon since, and show some of them. That's the mikoshi girl (above) all dressed and ready for bear(ing) the portable shrine around the village.

That's her doing her job, just before she started shouting at the kid next to her to quit goofing around and help carry the mikoshi.

And m again, this time lugging the shrine through the surf (though it looks as if the adult is doing most of the work). I'll forgive the kids here since a lot of them were just barely holding their heads out of the waves.

And finally Y's shot of the adult shrine in the water. At this point, as I mentioned, these guys are completely out of it, but that doesn't stop them from rocking the heavy shrine up and down in the water so frantically that they're always just a hair from losing it . . . but they never do.