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Miyakonojo Bonchi Matsuri
The Bonchi Matsuri is the largest festival in Miyakonojo, and a large section of the main road, Route 10, is closed to traffic to allow the large procession of dancers to march down, and also have sections for separate dance groups, and stages. It is held on the first weekend of August and the majority of performances consist of a large number of dances, both contemporary hip hop style, done by local groups (including many school groups), and also traditional style dances. I was fortunate to be invited to take part in the main local folk style dance, seen in the photo above, by the Miyakonojo International Association. For the…
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Local Summer Festival
I suppose there would have been no bad season for me to arrive in Japan. Everything was new to me and I would have found interesting events, discovered seasonal dishes and explored, whatever the season was.Nevertheless, Summer is my favourite season, and I soon discovered Summer festivals. As it turned out the first festival I went to was in a tiny neighbouring town, not in the small regional city I lived in.In the photo above is a traditional folklore kind of performance, unfortunately I have no further information. In both the photo above, and the photo below, flags of various countries can be seen. The festivals (apart from the small…