Day 8: The Echigo-Tsumari Art Festival Part 2 and Toyama

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The train schedule wasn't as convenient as we'd hoped, and a lot of the larger installations were up in the hills away from the towns. We decided to just explore Tōkamachi a little bit more.

Two women stand in the middle of Snow in Snow, by Hisako and Tomoya Sugiura, with Sugiura Laboratory, Showa Woman's University.

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Hundreds of origami snowflakes hung suspended on criss crossing wires in an empty lot. Despite the rain, it was actually miserably hot that day (as it was the entire length of our trip). I wonder what the piece would have looked like if it was actually snowing.

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A lot of the works were very small, and not very interesting. After checking out a half dozen others we decided to move on. We were spending the night in Toyama.

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We started wandering the streets of Toyama, looking for some dinner, when we heard music. We followed it to a nearby park and stumbled on a Yosakoi dance festival.

I hadn't seen it before, but Yosakoi is freakin' cool. It's a crazy blend of traditional dance styles and aesthetics with a much more modern pace and musical arrangement. YouTube has some good videos, including this TV Hokkaido clip.

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It was still raining off and on, but that didn't stop any of the dancers.

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We ate a ton of yakisoba, watched the dancing for a while, then headed back to our hotel. The next day was going to be even more awesome.

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