Sado - Onidaiko Festival

On Saturday we have a day off and nothing really exciting happened except for a small incident with a bat in our room. On Sunday, there is a festival in Ryotsu, on the other side of the island. All dance groups from different cities come there and perform their version of Onidaiko. This is a drum dance where a demon hits the drum with drumsticks, releasing the evil energy it has collected beforehand. These dances are traditionally performed in spring, and the demons go through the houses to collect all the evil. Oni are the demons performing the dance, and Daiko (Taiko) are the drums played with it. At the end of each performance, the Oni walk through the audience and touch people with their hair. Some children don't find it very funny. The dances look really cool, and occasionally dragons come on stage and clatter loudly with their mouths. At the beginning, three old men with masks perform a dance and then throw candy to the children, a bit like at our carnival. A dance and music group from a high school in Sado also performs two dances and accompanies them with traditional music on Japanese instruments. Other than that, there is a lot of food at the festival. Most stalls only have meat and fish, but I still find some Korean vegetable pancakes and a Taiyaki in Oni form. (Of course, not as good as the one from the shop in Ogi) After the school group, the program becomes very one-sided, and only different Onidaiko groups perform. Since we have seen them five times already, we decide to make a detour to the souvenir shop and then head back. On Monday after that, we are back at the Chokokuji Temple to help with cleaning. This time, there are only four of us, but everything goes much more smoothly than last time, and after about two hours, we have swept through all the rooms. On the way back to Koninji, we stop at a viewpoint with rice terraces, like in Iwakubi. We take some beautiful photos and then head back to the temple.