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Obon 2015

It was obon in Japan last weekend.
For the first day of obon, people go to the Buddhism temple where they have their families' grave stones. In front of the temple building, they have the big candle stands that have many lit candles.  The flames on the candles are the souls of their ancestors.
People go to there with the chouchin, the Japanese lanterns, that have the candles inside; they lit the candles in chochin with the flames from the temple and bring them back to their home.
That is supposed to mean they take their ancestors back homes.
 
For the second day of obon, people clean the grave stones and around there for the ancestors, so they can go back to the clean place.
Also, since people have their ancestors at their homes, people pay visit each other's ancestors with obon gifts.  So, it's one of the biggest "gift exchanging week" in Japan because before obon, usually people do exchange ochu-gen, mid-year gifts too.
 
As for me, I had delivered 10 ochu-gen gifts before obon by myself and 25 gifts for obon with my father and nephew.
It was busy week, but that's how my usual obon.
 
Sometime, I encounter some of my old friends during delivering the gifts.
Though I could only see those my classmates back in my school days, and we greeted very shortly each other, it's still fun to see them.
I could look for them via SNS easily to keep contact to them, but I save it all for that short yearly greeting "hey, what's up?" Yeah, I know it's strange, but that's enough for me.    
 
For the third day, they bring their ancestor back to the temple.
So, obon takes three days to finish.  And for the three days, they enjoy the fireworks in front of their homes for welcoming their ancestors.
 
People come around to Miyako for obon from where they currently live, and you can see more people and traffic.   When you see it gets back to the normal traffic after obon week, you would also feel the ending of the summer season as well.
 

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