Nagasaki Lantern Festival

I have fallen short, once again, of my goal to blog with consistency and commitment.  Life has been getting in the way, which is actually rather wonderful.  But I do have things I want to share.  And I am going to share them, even if it is in the form of 4 posts in one day as opposed to one post a week.  At least until I get into a more solid rhythm here.

First, here are the pictures from the Nagasaki Lantern Festival back in February.  The ornate and intricate paper lanterns (well, I assume they were some sort of magical, water resistant paper, but paper-ish nonetheless), were truly beautiful to behold.  From rather basic hanging lanterns by the hundreds, lighting the way through the streets.... to artistic masterpieces depicting dragons, dogs, sea life, people, and gods, it was hard not to take pictures of every single thing we saw. Fortunately/Unfortunately, limited photo storage memory on my phone and an extremely active Aria kept me from staying in one place too long.  Meaning, I was forced to narrow down my selections.  Next year, there will be more pictures, I hope.

 

Yes, that is a Chinese dragon made of china.

This group of gentle god-like lanterns was my favorite to look at.  Thus making this my favorite lantern-based picture from the festival this year.  Simple as the features on these hand-painted faces seem, the expressions were remarkably sincere, and really drew me in.  I stood at stared for quite a while.  

This goofy looking guy was my favorite dragon in the whole festival. :-) 

Dragon Dancers, each holding up one of the many poles that supported this giant weaving dragon as it chased a golden ball around the stage and through the audience.  I must say, while being so far back didn't make for a very good picture, being as tall as I am in a country full of short people made it much easier to see.  There was one elderly lady in front of me I felt almost compelled to hoist onto my shoulders, though.  I didn't.  But I wanted to.