Countries Of My Life: Flight of the Big Octopus Dragon

I met with Nene-san, Ivy-san and Tina-san around noon. Together we went to Hamamatsu to watch the 大凧祭り (oo-tako-matsuri; Big Kite Festival). Hundreds of kites were flying during the three days of this festival. But of course, the flight of the biggest kite was the main event.

Perfect Weather for Seeing Kites :)

Why do I call it "Big Octopus Dragon"? Well, it's certainly big (about 8 meters per side) and I've combined my two favorite languages: Japanese and German. The Japanese word for kite is pronounced "tako" which can also mean "octopus". The same with German: "Drachen" is the German word for kite which also means "Dragon" :D

Now you understand the pun of this kite ^^

When we arrived, the place was already crowded with many people. When I read about this festival later, I found out that up to 2 million(!) people are attending this festival every year. Luckily they were not there at once ;)

Before the big kite was getting up, some smaller kites flew first. And with "smaller", I mean about 3 or 5 meters per side :) They had also a class system for the kites depending on their size. Of course, the bigger the kite, the more difficult was the task to bring it up into the air. Even for these "smaller" ones 20 or more people were necessary to pull and hold them.

These kites are also built new every year. I watched a video beforehand about this festival. It's actually pretty amazing how they build them. Just search for "big kite japan" at Youtube and you will find many of these videos ;) This day we were also lucky with the wind, so they got everyone of them up in the air at the first try. Well, nearly everyone :D

Was quite exhausting to let the big one fly :D

The big kite was sure a complicated task. Even with quite a good wind, 4 tries were necessary until they could stabilize it in the air. So how do they let these giant kites fly? Well at first some men are raising the kite up which is sure fun to watch :D

Afterwards, the people at the rope pull the kite up in the air. To not to break the kite and to let it get more altitude, they tried to hold him sometimes.

An announcer told loudly what to do and some men, who looked like flight controllers, gave the people on the rope also signals with flags. Quite an effective system ;)

The rope for each bigger kite was additionally attached to an anchor made out of wheat and woods. So when a kite was high enough, no one had to hold the rope anymore and it was done ^^

Finally, the 3 Biggest Kites were in the Sky ^^
(C) Tina

Besides the kites there were also many booths with food, a Taiko (Japanese drums) group and many car-sharped flags called 鯉幟 (Koinobori). These are actually flying around since April. They are symbols for the father and sons in a family. I think they shall also bring luck or so. Well if you want to know more about it, ask Google-sensei ^^