The closest supermarket to my apartment is located in an outlet shopping center known as “Cool’s Mall.” While biking to the supermarket yesterday afternoon to do some grocery shopping, I suddenly found myself smack dab in the middle of the annual Pumpkin Carnival. Go figure!
I arrived near the tail end of the festivities, but still had enough time to see all the prizewinning gourds. In keeping with the traditional matsuri (festival) atmosphere, there were little booths selling yakisoba, shaved ice, and pumpkin and red bean mochi. I bought some takoyaki (octopus balls) which were sadly not pumpkin flavored. I ate them while looking at all the different pumpkin entries, some of which were quite creative as you can see from the pictures below.
At one point there were a bunch of guys atop a platform tossing out mystery doodads to the audience. All the kids began scrambling and going nuts for the trinkets, so I can only guess that they were prizes of some sort.
When volunteers started circling around with donation boxes in order to, “help keep the Pumpkin Carnival alive,” I figured it was a good time to leave and continue with my previously scheduled grocery shopping.
Enjoy the pumptastical pictures below!
B.E.W.
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