Festivals, festivals, everywhere and not a place to sit!!!

Today I will leave Iida, in only 4 hours actually, but my last week here made for quite a finally! Last weekend I went to Japan for the fireworks festival. It was really fun, but unfortunately, the only seats that we coud find were under tree cover. So, through the trees the fireworks looked less like fireworks and more like flashing Christmas lights, but they were still beautiful. There were more than 1 million people at the festival, which made walking quite a challenge. After the festival, we headed for the subway but decided not to take it when we saw that the line to board extended 2 blocks above ground. I can honestly say that I've never seen so may people in one place before in my entire life! The best part about being in Tokyo was seeing my friends. Akina's family was incredibly nice, and it was wonderful to see her before she moves to Boston. I was also able to see Taka at the festival. He took the train all the way from Chiba to spend the afternoon in Tokyo with us even though he had to start work the next day. I was so glad that he came. That day in Tokyo was spectacular! The rest of my time in Tokyo was spent at the Tokyo national museum in Ueno park, visiting Asakusa, and window shopping in Ginza. The only bad thing about Tokyo was that my first day there, my camera broke, so I was only able to take one photo!!! Fortunately, my travel buddy, Crystal, took tons of photos and I'll be able to get them from her eventually.
When I came back from Tokyo, it was time to prepare for a hectic last week in Iida. (but hectic in a good way ;) ....... The opening ceremony for the Iida festival was on Thursday, and I was performing there!!! Our shito priest puppet was called upon to bless the festival. Although it did seem like maybe a bad idea to have americans bless a japanese festival, it seemed to work anyway. The festival was spectacular!!! Everyone complemented us on out performances both Thursday and Sunday. It was great to have the praise, but the best thing about the festival was the city wide ringon (meaning apple) festival on Saturday!!! Our small town of Iida was filled to the rim with people doing the traditional ringon dance. If you ask me some time, I can teach it to you!!! It was incredible! We danced through the city for 2 hours with thousands of other people. Everyone was wearing either traditional festival dress, or they were decked out in crazy costumes! It was one of the most fun nights I've ever had!!! I really hope that I can come back to this festival again someday!!! After the festival was over and we had completed our performances, it was the begining of the end. The time had come to start saying our goodbyes. I have never seen so many people cry except at funerals. However, if in a way, I suppose that it is appropriate because this group will never be assembled again. It was a spectacular summer which I will never forget.