ODA NOBUNAGA TOUR

NOBUNAGA MATSURI - Day #2

Again, on our second day of we were looking forward to the ucoming parade, 'cause it was the one re-enacting personalities from Nobunaga's "circle" :D
But let's go in order! We arrived at the station in the late morning where we were greated by a flute/taiko duo:

We listened for a bit, then we decided to go and start looking for a god spot to savour the parade.
We miraculously find a free bench on the road, and sat our big foreign butts there XD
We were entertained by this stand of maki and its brainwashingly jingle--

--After a few minutes I was munching them XD

Delicious ♥ Maki filled with grilled beef hearts;

Another Nobunaga goodie while we were waiting!

A cute Nobusama decorating a taxi∼

At this point I had some suspicious about our location, 'cause I observed the most of the audience staying on the other side of the road.
"--I think that the parade is going to walk over that side of the road" I told Teap, who replied "Naah, it's just because there's shadow there, Japanese people hate sunbathing..."
In the end we moved because we were really FRYING under the sun, but guess what...?

The parade was ACTUALLY passing on ONE SIDE of the road!
It was a bit sad, to have all those buses behind our samurai T_T;

Anyway, before the Sengoku parade there were the local policemen band and a brief tribute to the twin-cities of Gifu (Florence too? Wow!)...
After this first batch, it was finally the turn of Nobunaga's gunmen:

Then it was the turn of the parade of the kids; look at how cute this Nobunaga and Nouhime are XD

Me and Teap fantasized about the whole situation, like, the two kids are actually classmates and hate each other but are forced to act like Nobunaga and Nouhime because they were acclaimed by popular demand and in the end, as adults, they'll get married...
LOL. --OTOME MINDS!

It was finally the turn of adults when--

--THIS GUY DECIDED TO TAKE PICTURES OF NOBUNAGA ON A STOOL RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME o_o;
I had to use all of my self-control to not grab him and throw him on the other side of the road!!

But now let's talk about the samurai personalities that paraded right in front of my eyes >o< !
I didn't take pictures of everyone, because I couldn't read the names on time, but consider that there were, besides the ones that I'm going to show you, a good amount of Nobunaga's other allies and retainers!

So, let's start... the first one, was obviously Nobunaga.

Closely followed by Ranmaru...

...And Luis Frois!

Then, Nouhime:

Dousan (at first I thought that he was Uesugi Kenshin, then I thought "Why Uesugi Kenshin should appear on a Nobunaga parade?!" ...And only after this thought I read his name on the banner!):

This was Oichi :3

By the way, each character was preceeded and followed by their very own guards :D
These noisy boys were the guards of--

--Hideyoshi ^_^ (who was quite popular with the audience):

During the parade we heard some gunshots! We realized that ahead the gunmen were doing the "Three-fold Matchlock Gun Shooting" demonstration!!

We realized that they were shooting at each crossroad, so we rushesd to reach the closer one--!

we finally reached them at the last crossroad of the road, I managed to take pictures of the last shooting only:

So, since we were there, we walked 'til the end of the course to greet Nobunaga again--

--And bother him and Nouhime for a pic! Fufu!

And after the parade we decided to take a walk around the famous Kawaramachi:

Well, everything was closed or it appeared so... It was a suggestive walk, though!

And now, a few shots of the most interesting omiyage items!
First were definitely the Nobutama:

Boiled eggs wrapped in a golden foil-- Featuring Nobunaga's face popping up!

Second, Nobunaga's Red; we saw the poster at a supermarket in Nagoya, but we found it only in Gifu, when we were getting back to the hotel in Nagoya!

They were nothing but strawberry-flavoured sweets... But the elegant package made them quite pricey!

--And the adorable Nobusama's Senbei XD So cute! I love this mascot to bits!

So, as we headed back to Nagoya, we decided that it was time for some tebasaki (手羽先), deep-fried lightly-spiced chicken wings∼
We didn't feel like walking around too much, so we just got some take-away tebasaki at Yamachan's:

Here are our goodies in their cute packages.. We drank the Gundam-styled Pepsi that we got at Quattro Vageena the night before with them.
Usually tebasaki are recommended with beer, but some nice cold coke really hit the spot!

And here they are... Nagoya's tebasaki:

After the Nobunaga Matsuri, the day after we resumed our Nobunaga Tour... The last day of our stay, we went to Azuchi, and had a rushed walk to Kyoto, too..!
As I said, we enjoyed the festival, but it wasn't as big and as cool as we thought it was... I suggest you to attend it only if you're a Nobunaga fan, otherwise the Dosan Matsuri or the Nagoya Matsuri are probably more spectacular choices.