Nishi Hongwanji Obon Festival

Ards, Nadine, Sasami, Sat & I went to the Nishi Hongwanji Obon Festival in Little Tokyo today.

It's the Buddhist temple Sat & I used to go when we were kids because my childhood friends' (Shiho and Shino) dad was a monk there. They moved up to Fresno area when we were in elementary school, so I haven't seen them in forever.

Oh yeah, I had a photo of them uploaded to Flickr.

Shiho on left, Shino on right, Shiz in center. Around 8 years old?

Anyway, back to the obon festival.

Sasami bought three plants to grow in her back yard. She mentioned that half of the plants she's bought are still alive, which prompted Ards to say, "So she kills 50% of the plants she brings home." Sasami said the シシトウplant she bought before died, and Ards started to make a check off list of plants Sasami killed off.

The taiko performance started, and there was a young boy with frosted hair in the group. We (I) sent Sasami to take a photo of the boy. She always does my dirty work. She came back with the requested photos. Good job, Sasami!

Sat & I bought 栗まんじゅう and later bought 沖縄ダンゴ, which is just fried donuts. It was really crunchy this year, and I liked it a lot.


We left before the 盆踊りstarted.
Nadine thought that they were going to have a race at the dance area... because there are lines drawn on the ground where the people are supposed to dance around. Tee hee.

We all headed over to Little Tokyo Shopping Center to buy cold drinks at Mitsuwa. Sat wanted to eat あんみつ, so Ards, Sat & I went to Hanaichi. Miho-san said there were a lot of kids in cosplay who came by last weekend (AX), but it's been slow ever since. Weird, since there's two obon festivals going on in Little Tokyo this weekend.


After Hanaichi, we went to Max Karaoke to sing some anime songs.
やってることがヲタと変わらないじゃん。。。