Kiku festival

Kiku is the Japanese name for the chrysanthemum and Kiku festivals are held yearly in towns across Japan. Kushiro's Kiku Festival was held in an exhibition hall. The displays took up roughly the bottom third af the hall, with a stage and chairs erected in teh middle, and stalls selling food and flowers at the far end, behind the stage. When I arrived there were singers taking to the stage so I sat down and listened. The songs sounded very traditional and the singers were all older, as was the audience. Each singer performed one song, and a compere talked to some of them as they came off. Discovered at the end, that it had been a competition. By the time the end came I was sitting by the side with a bowl of Udon noodles and the place started to empty fairly quickly even though there was over an hour left to go. On of the door staff came over to me and gave me some green tea, then a guy at the table behind me gave me a balloon as he was leaving. People can be so kind here. Anyway, after my noodles, finally had a proper look at the kiki, there were long, standing, single stems, lined up in order of colour and paintings of kiku by school kids. There was also a row of craft items - oragami compositions, painted items etc and some bonsai arrangements. The centre piece, along the back wall, were a collection of lifesize dolls, there clothing constructed from flowers.