Sunday, July 26, 2009

Bon Festival

Last night there was a Bon Festival in Haleiwa. The Bon festival is a Japanese Buddhist tradition to honor the dead. There were basically two parts to the festival last night: the Bon dance, which has drumming and singing and lots of people dancing simple repeated steps around in a circle, and the setting of paper lanterns, which people dedicate to a deceased loved one, to float out to sea.

Bon dance

Sorry, I'm not so good at taking pictures of moving people in low light and big crowds.

People bring the lanterns down to the water


The lanterns float out to sea


It's quite pretty and soothing listening to the waves and watching hundreds of lights drift out towards the horizon.

That's all for now.

6 comments:

Sebastian Anthony said...

Loving the similarities between the second and third photos... :)

It's TRIPOD time! Also, you can't live in Hawaii without a 'proper' camera -- get a Canon 450D (Rebel XSi?) for $500!

After you buy your SCUBA gear of course.

(It is an acronym btw, but I'm sure you know that...)

Eleni said...

Hey--in the first photo you can see people putting the lanterns in the water. The second one is just faraway floating lanterns.

A mere $500? What a deal. I have a friend who works for Canon, so he would approve of your choice. Is it waterproof?

Of course it's an acronym, but it is perfectly acceptable (and less obnoxious) not to capitalize it. As with "laser".

Sebastian Anthony said...

Oh, I always capitalise LASER. Even better when Americans call it 'lazer' ahahaha. Gotta love 'em.

Well, it's about £500 for the body + lens; so probably around $500...!

To make it waterproof you need to get some plastic case thing; don't think they're too expensive... That's something I've never looked into tho', as our waters induce hypothermia in about 5 minutes...

Eleni said...

People spell it lazer? Hmm... Gives it a stylish edge, at least. Like skillz.

Sebastian Anthony said...

Well type it into Google and see!

Eleni said...

Most of the top Google hits for "lazer" seem like intentional stylistic misspellings, or sometimes someone's name. It is a known fact, though, that people misspell everything on the internet, but I suppose Americans are more likely to make the "lazer" mistake (we like our z). Note that the first hit for "lazer" (Lazerhelmets) is a Belgian site.