On Sunday, October 6th we returned to the Nana Beans building in downtown Yamagata for the second and final day of the Michinoku Kokeshi Festival. Since we had already spent a couple hours there we didn't stay for too long, but it was nice to see our friends and again the new pieces that had been put out. To top it all off, our older daughter Lena won a beautiful kokeshi when she spun the lucky wheel (not sure what it's called -- a Japanese tradition where a colored ball drops out of a hexagonal wheel). Anyway, here are a few pictures to show what we saw the second day.
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| A sign for the festival at the entrance to the building. |
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| The gift shop on the first floor of Nana Beans that says traditional kokeshis. It's highly recommended on a normal day, but I can't believe they were selling many kokeshis during the festival. |
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| The shop sign. That's a kokeshi. |
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| A nice display showing the different traditional kokeshi families and where in Tohoku they come from. |
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| On day two was this selection of small kokeshis, which the kokeshi makers have found to be very popular with young female collectors. |
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| Another view of the floor, which had been completely restocked. |
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| A beautiful 木地山系こけし Kijiyama kokeshi. |
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| Emily trying out the lucky wheel. No prizes unfortunately. |
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| Lena with her newly won kokeshi. |
We looked around a bit more and then decided to say farewell. After that we spent a few more hours in beautiful Yamagata City, which is well worth a visit any time of the year (it's become one of my favorite cities in Japan). Overall, the 2013 Michinoku Kokeshi Festival was a great event, especially the joint craftsmen-enthusiasts banquet. If you have a chance, by all means go in 2014, 2015 or beyond. You'll be glad you did.
And with that we completed another fun kokeshi adventure.
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