Matsuda-san invited me to a bon-odori festival in Yokohama. Since I've never been to a bon-odori festival before, and since Matsuda-san also gave me a jinbei (甚平 - one of Japanese casual wear for summer) to wear there, I automatically accepted the invitation. Miyuki happened to be there, and since Matsuda-san had just taught her how to wear yukata's obi (帯 - belt), she said that she'd come wearing yukata.
The day came and I went to Matsuda-san house. Not only me, two girls from Korea and one girl from Malaysia were also invited to the festival. The moment I entered Matsuda-san house I was thinking that it was valentine - (almost) everybody wore pink (well, pink yukata is quite a cliche wear on Japanese festival). Yuna-chan and her friend wore pink yukata, while even though not wearing yukata, Nazli wore pink hijab. Of course the (cliche :-) ) compliment came from me: "可愛い (kawaii: cute!)" (well, it's cliche, but they indeed look cute in pink :-) ). Thanks God that Matsuda-san wore pale-blue yukata, so I didn't have to go with all pink group :-).
Miyuki mailed me that she still had problem with the obi ("it started to fall down when I walked"), so we went first. It took around 30 minutes to the festival, and I saw some more pink there :-). (It might sound that I hate pink, but actually I don't hate it at all. It's just that I got tired to see cliche things around :-) ). A lot of stands there, and the first stand that we visited was... goldfish scooping (Ryo-kun, Matsuda-san's son wanted to try that. I'm glad that the goldfish was red, not pink :-) ). Well, it is also a cliche game at a summer festival, but at least I could show off some knack there - specially in front of girls (too bad that Miyuki had not came yet :-) ) . I finally gave the goldfish that I got to Ryou-kun.
The bon-odori finally started, and now I began to wonder whether the dress code of the festival was pink :-). Rumi-chan dragged us to the dancing ground, and I started to dance - among the pink :-). Well, it was quite fun. There was a break for the dance, and some elementary school students perform taiko (太鼓 - Japanese traditional drum). At that time I heard Miyuki voice from behind, "お待たせ (omatase: sorry to make you wait)"
I turned, be prepared to see yet another girl in pink and say the cliche word "可愛い", but when my sight struck on her, "格好いい (kakkou ii: cool!)" was the word that came from my mouth (automatically, well, she indeed looked cool... :-) ). Miyuki was wearing a dark yukata with (unfortunately again :-) ) pink obi, but at least there was a different sight eventually :-). And it seemed that the obi was alright, not falling :-).
The rest of the festival was fun, even though it's full of cliche things. There was some more dancing and lottery (we won cooking oil :-) ). And like all cliche date on Japanese summer festival (by what definition could I call it a date? :-) ), Miyuki and I ended up sharing takoyaki (たこ焼き - octopus ball) and drank ramune (ラムネ - Japanese traditional carbonated drink). All that's missing was hanabi (花火 - firework)... Well, the cliche thing didn't end just like that. When we went home, again we said the cliche greeting: "楽しかったね (tanoshikatta ne: It was fun, wasn't it?)"
(Actually, the standard expression is "楽しかったです(tanoshikatta desu: it was fun)", anyway, Miyuki and I had said that we would never used polite Japanese to each other, so we used the plain form...).
Sometimes it's good to be cliche... :-)
