We went to see the Bon Odori festival today. It was fun and interesting. There was plenty of dancing, and the taiko drums were loud! We were sitting pretty close to the drums, and my ears hurt a little, and I could feel the vibrations from the big taiko reverberating in my chest. It was pretty cool. I noticed a couple of the drummers were wearing earplugs. Although the dancers and musicians were not professional quality, it was really cool to see a local effort. And many of the audience members participated in the dancing. It was great! We also met up with a bunch of people from the Japanese Kids’ Playgroup.