Sado - Onidaiko Festival

On Saturday, we had a day off, and except for a little incident with a bat in our room, nothing really exciting happened. On Sunday, there is a festival taking place in Ryotsu, on the other side of the island. All the dance groups from different cities gather there to perform their version of Onidaiko. It is a drum dance where a demon, armed with drumsticks, strikes the drum with the evil energy it has collected beforehand. These dances are traditionally performed in spring, and the demons go around houses to collect all the evil. Oni are the demons performing the dance, and Daiko (Taiko) are the drums played alongside. At the end of each performance, the Oni walk through the audience and touch people with their hair. Some children do not find it amusing. The dances look really cool, and occasionally, dragons also appear on stage, clattering their mouths loudly. Initially, three elderly men with masks perform a dance and then throw candies to the children, somewhat similar to our carnival. A dance and music group from a high school in Sado also performs two dances and accompanies them with traditional music played on Japanese instruments. Apart from that, there is a lot of food at the festival. Most stands only have meat and fish, but I manage to find some Korean vegetable pancakes and an Oni-shaped Taiyaki. (Of course, not as good as the ones from the shop in Ogi.) After the school group, the program becomes repetitive with various Onidaiko groups, and since we have already seen them five times, we decide to visit the souvenir shop and head back. On Monday, 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 our way back to Koninji, we stop at a viewpoint with rice terraces, similar to Iwakubi. We take some beautiful photos and then drive back to the temple