Event: Japanese Summer Festival 'Bon Odori' Bali 2013

This is a super late post. Sorry.. >.< but I want to share it with you since it is a unique yearly event. This is the event poster.

Last August, exactly at August 31 I went to Bon Odori Festival in Bali. Bon Odori is a Japanese Summer Festival where women usually wears Yukata (traditional Japanese clothes) and bakiak. It is a fun festival and hold every year by Bali Japan Club. 

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The festival has been held since 1990. So this is the 23rd. Many Japanese in Bali and many of them get married with Balinese people. I have an aunt that married a Japanese, too. It is very multicultural. I went there with my fiancee, back then. It was hold at Ayodya Hotel Nusa Dua. It is a big five stars hotel that has a private beach and it's kinda an old hotel so the area is so big. As you know Bali now has limited space because of too many hotels, so usually the old hotel that has big area. Some pics of Ayodya Hotel.

The festival is at the garden near the beach. Do you see the sunloungers by the beach? Yes it was held around that area. Even though it's a big place it's still super crowded. Come on into the festival.

The festival was at night and it's near the entrance, forgot to take a photo for the entrance. It was covered by people and food stalls. The food stalls weren't really Japanese food and not really good. 

(Please don't mind my messy hair, it's so windy back then) We had to buy coupon to buy some foods and drinks, also to join traditional games. It was a bundle coupon so we should buy IDR 50.000/purchase. Smart way to earn money. I just bought 1 bundle because I didn't want to spend more just because I wanted to have some drinks or something.

I paid IDR 30.000 for a small portion of vegetable curry rice. I had no choice because I'm hungry. They also had a sushi stall but only get a few pcs. Nah... You wouldn't get full of eating this.

It's me near the food stalls. It's kinda hard to took a photo in that crowdness.

This was my fiancee back then. He helped me take photos.

It is the stage, located in the center of the garden. It's not a big stage so some shows are performed on the ground.

There it is.. The cosplay show. It's such a sad thing, I couldn't get the photo from the front. It's so crowded and everyone wanted to watch them, needed a big effort to get to the front stage. Anyway, it's so cool and they're so creative! Never seen a cosplay show before. It felt like Haloween costume, tho. ^_^ What are you gonna dress up as if you're joining a cosplay show? I like cardcaptor Sakura.

In the middle of the crowd, met so many unique people here. My hair was so messy >_<.. It's long hair before, now I already cut them off. I can't stand having a long hair. 

People were lining up for a game. It's a traditional game, ring toss. You had to toss the ring into a stick or something. It looks simple but so hard. Phew.. The prize was promising, too. Hotel voucher and etc.

A Japanese woman concentrated in what to do with the ring.. Hahaha... It seems fun.

So many children were around this small pool. Yes... It is a Japanese traditional summer game, fishing the water baloon. I wanted to join but a little bit ashamed because the other parties are children. (>_<). No matter if you win or not, you still could get the water baloon and hold it everywhere with a string. So like the one I saw in comic books when I was a child.

The festival is near the beach. I went to the beach for refreshing from the crowd and managed to take a photo of the whole festival. It felt like a concert, too.

The main show is the bon dance. It was so awesome and beautiful, the dancers were from 5 years old children to teenagers and they were so perfect together. With so many dancers from different range but all organized so well, I'm amazed. They must practiced a lot!

These are the boys from the Bon Dance. They did some karate moves, along with the girls.

The children were so cute. So many Japanese and half Japanese-Balinese children were on the dance. Usually the couple is from Japanese woman with Balinese men. 

There's still a dance show on the stage after and also a Taiko show, it's a big Japanese drum. Beautiful! 

That's all my experience on the festival. I will definitely go the the next year festival. I wanted to go to Sanur Festival, it's a cultural festival too along with some good foods around but it was so crowded, I couldn't even get in at night. So... Have you even been to a festival? Share....!