Oh Sado Mio

One of my favorite places anywhere is the island of Sado, off the western coast of Japan. We went for the Earth Celebration, a festival started by Kodo, a famous Taiko drumming group. After arriving on Friday and getting settled in our room, we enjoyed the dinner prepared by the hotel - a typical Japanese one made up of many little dishes. This being Sado, an island known for its seafood, most of the dishes came from the sea, most were recognizable and most were delicious.

Saturday morning we made our way down to Ogi, the port town where the festival was being held. Meeting our friends Ryan, Darla and Ryder, we spent the mostly rainy day listening to drumming, walking around the festival market and marveling at the amazingly relaxed crowd.

Kanatsuryu Yanagawa Shishi Odori (Deer Dance)

A Brazilian group called Bloco Barravento, made up of both Japanese and Brazilian drummers.
Waiting patiently to get into the gym to hear the next group....

A very relaxed group waiting for the main band, Olodum, to perform. I have never seen such an orderly group. Before we got to our spot, we had to line up according to the color card we got earlier in the day. Even within the green group, we had numbers - this was the chart:



Can you believe anyone would pay attention to this in the states? - NO WAY. But here, everyone did. We had a very steep climb up to the clearing for the concert and everyone sat down very nicely. No pushing, no shoving, no fights. An announcement was made about the venue and the concert, what was allowed and what wasn't and a special note that if you wanted to dance, to please move to the side as to not disturb the people behind you who may not want to stand. This lasted all of about 30 seconds once the main band Oludum came out. As they are Brazilian and not used to sitting still during a musical performance, they immediately called out for everyone to stand, which we all did - and danced for almost the entire two hour performance, through rain and everything. Even Baba san was dancing - and Ariana, well let me just show you. Mind you, this was shot earlier in the day as we were listening to Bloco Barravento, but you get the idea: