Here's a series from the Chichibu Yomatsuri just this past weekend. The festival goes on for 2 days (December 2 and 3) and the highlight is at night. All local districts pull out their floats (I guess that's the word for them) and pull them through central Chichibu, Saitama. I read somewhere that these floats weigh more than 10-tons....and after looking at them, I wouldn't doubt it. The crowd is just amazingly too huge that at times, you can't even move your arms while walking (just like a packed train) or you can't make a turn because you are just being pushed along with the rest of the crowd. God help if someone fell down. What's so fun about this?!? I haven't the slightest idea but I would definitely go back again for the "Jagabata" (steamed potato). Of course, as at any matsuri, the food was good!
Anyway, here's a few of the people that pull these floats. Most were in their teens and mostly girls. Must've been a few hundred of them pulling at once. The cool thing is that they were all having fun while yelling out the name of their district and chanting "We're number 1!"