Shiman Rokusen Nichi Festival in our neighborhood

The shinto shrine directly across the street from our apartment hosted one of the city's Shiman-Rokusen-Nichi festivals - the idea being that visiting the shrine on one of the festival days earns you the equivalent of 46,000 visits. Some streetmeats, homebrew, hippy crafts, and performances.

View from front of our apt. bldg.
This plant was the star of the show for some reason. It is called a 'chinese lantern plant' or 'husk tomato' and looks to be a red tomatillo basically.

The taiko drumming was definitely the highlight on the evening that we went; though the kids kinda steal the show in this clip, and the bass of the drums doesn't really get captured:



The main shrine building after the crowd had gone.

And the centerpiece... The thing is about 20 ft. high and we had no idea it was there after being in our apt. for over a week.