I can virtually dance - Bon Bon with Luna 2020-style!

Massively disappointed our dance cards are BLANK tonight...except they aren't, because we did our homework a couple of weeks ago :)

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Virtual Matsumoto Bon Bon - Can Do!

The Zoomed-in Team

Thank you everyone who made the effort to join us for an early, socially distanced but joined up Bon Bon!

We are very excited with the video that Emmy has edited together, which we hope will be shown on local TV on Aug 1st (when the festival should have been held). We will be sharing a lot more of our photos & videos then.

Well done Eleanor & her friends leading the charge outside in our car park. They know the dance and did a really genki job with no crowd!

Outdoor distanced Team

Indoor connecting Team

Participating via Zoom, and with a lagging video stream (sorry, we've not done a virtual festival before!) and learning as they went were former Matsumoto natives living in Singapore and Tokyo; ex-teachers joining us from Tokyo with family, Auckland in New Zealand & Cairo in Egypt - we miss you guys! - and even another language school owner & her daughter from Tokyo. Super moves!

Trying to co-ordinate these two groups, who couldn't see each other, our staff in the downstairs classroom + Matsumoto Castle :)
doing our best to demonstrate the dance & keep everything going.

We also had for extra bonus videos arrive from old friends who did Bon Bon once, somewhat inebriated, in 1995. Still got the moves in Cornwall, Brighton & Southport in England, and in North Carolina, USA.

Great that we could all do this and get our super red Bon Bon t-shirts sweaty again. Wish we could have done this 'for real', but in a way this brought us all closer.

Thank you again Luna's truly International family - across five continents you are inspiring! See you here August 7th, 2021.

Miki’s holiday report

Postcard from Awaodori Festival, Tokushima

Thank goodness we don't have to provide our own band to produce the music for Bon Bon!

Every dancing group here at Tokushima Awaodori Festival brings its own drummers; some with shamizen & other instruments, and choreograph their own dance routines (but with the same foot & arm gestures). Some of them had really cool moves & wonderful traditional costumes; nearly everybody wears the signature conical straw hat. And they do this for three nights running?!

Also unlike Bon Bon, the groups move between set places to perform, where there are grandstands for the crowds to sit & appreciate the teams properly. This stops people walking through the groups, which is something that really annoys me when we dance in Matsumoto - it is very disrespectful and potentially dangerous.

And finally, there were no deisel generators chugging out noxious fumes to light the streets. This has to stop in Matsumoto.

There was a good crowd, and all the shops were open - plenty of ramen shops - and the party went on until 10pm. It's nice to see someone else's summer festival, and enjoy as a spectator.

Another Bon Bon Boogie Night!

The first week of August, hot and steamy, drew to a close; Matsumoto's streets gave way to pedestrians and party-goers! Once again, tens of thousands of people turn out to dance the city streets and join in the fun...and right in the middle is little Luna, led by our merry band of mini-dancers in their smart red t-shirts...and they kept dancing all night long!

We had time to warm up, on Eki-mai, with nobody around - same as last year...but our good friends from the Nagano Pref. Children's Hospital were in front of us. Not sure if they enjoyed the special jelly Damian & Jim had concocted. Contents? Trade secret - but 'special'.

It seemed like a quiet night, and thankfully not too many idiots trying to barge through our group this year. Main problem was Alex occasionally getting too close to the white line in the middle of the road!

 Along the way we bumped into old friends & students dancing with other groups, and others joining us once their more boring teams went home early :) We added a Spanish coterie to our tails for the final swing around the whatever park, behind Yohashira shrine, and later heard stories of Seville & Barcelona while we warmed down over cold drinks!

Thanks everyone who joined us and made Bon Bon 2016 a lovely night out. We think you are great, and we love making this evening the centerpiece of our summers.

You will find all our pictures from the evening at the link below

https://www.flickr.com/gp/saint_george/X1NFwe

Drum finale Matsumoto Castle

listen to ‘Drum finale Matsumoto Castle’ on Audioboo

Bon Bon 2013 slideshow

Another summer, and another Bon Bon Festival! Full photo album here

Our team gets younger every year, and we were missing a few noisy stalwarts this time out...and a bit hard for mums & dads to cut loose with toddlers in tow! We also had a new mototrised division - push chairs & prams at the rear.

As you can see from this slideshow, most people little & large went the distance - til 9pm and our finishing line at the top of Isemachi (as the crow flies we went about 75 metres!) and had loads of fun in the process. Lots of jumping & arm-waving, sometimes in time with the music even :) Everyone seemed to have a turn holding the banner up at the front & leading the sedate charge. Thank you everyone for joining us, and for sharing lots of smiles. Of course, a great evening like tonight needs planning & organising - thank you Yukari for going to the meetings, printing maps & t-shirt logos etc...you were super xxx



Thank you also to old friends & family who stopped us to say hello, especially:

• Nagano Prefectural Children's Hospital
• Sayaka, Mitsuna & Yumeka who danced in our very first Bon Bon
• Ayako & her friends, back from college
• Shibaura (where Jim taught back in 1990!)

We are looking forward to August 4th, 2014 already...

Very large grumble though about the obnoxious Yakuza presence, drunk students shouting obscenities "dancing" around our (and other) children, and a total lack of crowd. Seemed to me there were very few people actually watching this year. Have to blame the organisers for making the rules ever more boring and meaningless eg no hats, costumes, rattles, shakers, our large hands...at least there was provision at last for dumping rubbish.

What did everyone else think about the event?

Report - things to do in my hometown: Suwa, Nagano prefecture

Suwa lake firework Festival (Photo credit: Kurosawa Michiyo)

1. Festivals in Suwa

Summer Season: The majority of festivals are held in the summer. You can enjoy fireworks around Suwa Lake in August, every evening at 8pm. In additiona, many "Bon Odori" and "Ofune" festivals related with Suwa Lake are held.
Winter Season: Suwa Lake is frozen in January and February. The frozen lake blessing is broadcast on the news as "God`s walking on the Lake".

2. Onsens everywhere

There are onsens (public baths) which tend to be a bit cheaper than the majority of the high range hotels.

3. Suwa Lake

There are many options if you want to go fishing, boating and walking. While enjoying the outdoors, you can nearly always feel a nice, peaceful wind.

English: Lake Suwa, Suwa, Nagano prefecture, Japan  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

4. Eating out sight-seeing

Most traditional food restaurants are open near Suwa Lake. Generally speaking, some traditional food is cooked with very unique materials, such as bee larva etc. For your experience, we recommend trying to eat them. If you want to see a beautiful sight, why not visit "Kirigamine kogen". It takes one hour by car from Suwa station.

Posted by Yumi

Strange Festivals - Shouting Festival

In Kyushu in Japan there is a strange "Shouting Contest".

The rule is you shout to the mike and the winner is the person who shouts loudest. I want to do this contest, because I'm really good at shouting, so I think I can win!

Mr. T

Kamisya - Onbashira in Chino

Image by ijiwaru jimbo via Flickr

An awesome day wandering around looking for logs, drunks, photo ops and sunshine (still a bit nippy in the shade).

People kept giving us booze! I'd forgotten to bring a cup, but it didn't take long before Tana & I had both been collared with offers of sake & ume shu (plum liquour). Throughout the rest of the day we were plied with sake from generous tree-pulling, happi-jacketed, red-faced gents (thank you!)

I vaguely remember seven years ago - I say vaguely because I ended up extremely drunk, skulling sake in the sun & being treated by Bridgestone friends. I recognised the hill, and found a way around the crowd to the top of the hill where the logs were descending (four of them, altogether) line astern, attended by their hundreds of pullers/steerers/cheerers/chanters etc all in their gaily coloured jackets. Everyone was having a good time - police officers being teased by drunk old goats in a way that simply couldn't happen in the UK, cartons of sake or bamboo tubes filled with grog being proffered to friends and strangers alike. By the end of the day our pockets were bulging with cup sake!

As we had arrived the first log (call it the red one) was tipped over the lip of the crest, edged a bit further then bang - one of the big fat anchor ropes snapped & the log et al rapidly disappeared from view heading off to the right of the course. Everyone OK? No idea, but a lot of concerned participants quickly raced up the edge to look over. bizarrely, the same thing happened to the next log an hour later, after Tana & I had wriggled our way to the front. Here it was possible to see the spaghetti of ropes and anchors carefully laid out to help prevent carnage (that's the plan, at least) with teams on either side also help steer & balance the thing - here in Chino the logs have antlers/horns/outrigger looking things (next week in Suwa they do not) with young men proving their verility not clinging on for dear life, more like bull-riders with arms aloft.

Once the hill-drop has been negotiated, the logs are dragged (this 1200 year old tradition would seem to pre-date the invention of wheels?) through the streets - houses lining the course are obliged to offer sustenance to passers-by (all 2 million expected this year?!), and indeed we were invited to in to 'Please get drunk with us'. Hard to decline such wonderfully hospitable offers but I was keen to photograph this septennial event as much as I could. The outriggers barely squeezed between the houses/under power lines; every care taken by the teams to pick up their litter (tree bark mostly), all the while chanting, imbibing, smiling & dragging!

The procession was playing follow the leader down to the shrine, where these logs are raised vertical in a later ceremony (June). Barring the way is a river, which is forded en masse; we were shivering in the stiff breeze...plunging into this Apline run off at this time of year only for the foolhardy! Here, as with the hill, action preceded by lots of shouting & precision lining up; band playing their team tune; old lady wailing in a high-pitched prayer carried afar on the wind. As with the hill, people can & do get killed here, so there were rescue divers in the water just in case. Didn't seem to be any untoward drama today, but pulling a tree into & then out of a river with 50 odd guys on it not the simplest thing to co-ordinate.

As we lurched homewards, more sake from the last team, and an invitation Tana was unable to refuse to climb a bamboo pole. Smiles literally everywhere as everyone intent on having a good time and having it on time. For such a big event, seemingly chaotic, this went like clockwork. everyone has a job, and in the thousands all chipping in (very Japanese) to the greater mission. Really annoyed I'm going to be in Kyoto next weekend - would love to see how things work in Suwa (Shimosya I think?)

Brilliant day out - make a date in your diaries for 2017! Check out the other 699 photos on Flickr