Dragon Boat Races

Golden Week is a big holiday in Japan. It's the celebration of children, and specifically of boys. Okinawans hang fish flags from their houses and other buildings. The culmination of the celebration is on May 5th. In Okinawa, they celebrate with Dragon Boat Races. Teams are sponsored by businesses and groups. Each of the U.S. Military Branches has a men's and women's team competing at the Dragon Boat Races. In the picture above, you can see three boats lined up to start. The same three boats were used in each heat, but the rowers changed.

And they're off! In this heat, the green boat pulled away quickly. The rowers row down the harbor and turn around a flag and row back.

Obviously the teams that synchronize their rowing do the best. At the front of the boat is a drummer, who drums the beat to keep everyone together. There are also coaches in the middle who help to keep everyone on the same rhythm by crying out the beat. This team was really together.

Everyone watching the races.

The kids got bored quickly. I wanted to stay to watch one of my friends who was rowing for the Air Force Women's team. (They didn't do so well.) So, Jason took them off to find some cotton candy. They got a green, pink, and brown mix. It was lime, bubble-gum, and chocolate.

Jessica squishing the brown cotton candy.

After the women rowed, we wandered off to see some of the other parts of the festival. The kids wanted to jump in the jumpy house. It was 300 yen per child for four minutes. That comes to about $1.25 per minute at the current yen rate. I hope the enjoyed it.

This is my friend Tammy and I waiting for the kids to finish jumping. Notice how we end up carrying everything that the children collected at the festival?








The vendors along the street at the festival. They had a lot of the normal festival fare-

yakisobe, yaki-tori, fried rice, corn dogs, etc. Carston loved the yaki-tori. It was fun, but the weather, as you can see, was awful. Whenever it started raining, we'd all dawn our rain jackets, but then we were really warm, and they would stick to us. We probably would have wandered around a little more, but we were ready to get dry. Next year, I think I will try again, but this time, leave the kids at school and take my good camera.