Post Tagged with "festivals"

Picture Postcards: Polish celebrations

Poland?

Surprise, it’s actually Toronto, Canada. This week’s picture postcard of the annual autumn celebration of Polish culture in the Roncesvalles Village area of Toronto comes to us from Ana, aka Anina2007 on Flickr.

This concludes the theme of festivals and celebrations so, on to December we go! Our theme of the month will be houses. Join in the fun by submitting photos of houses in your country to our Flickr group. We can’t wait to see what you come up with.

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Picture Postcards: Bonfire night

This photo of a girl enjoying Bonfire Night on the 5th of November comes to us from Denise in the UK. Also known as Guy Fawkes Night, it is a festival that began after Guy Fawkes attempted, yet failed, to assinate King James I by blowing up the Parliament buildings. The occasion is marked by bonfires, sparklers and fireworks.

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Festivals from around the world

This month, we asked our contributors from around the world about festivals in their countries. Read on for festivals from Okinawa, Nigeria, Spain, England, USA and Argentina.

Okinawa (Japan)

By Mike Lynch, regional contributor for Japan (Okinawa)

The Island of Okinawa has too many festivals to cover in one article so I’ll list three that occur in Naha, the capitol city, which is also nearby an International Airport and convenient public transportation.

The Naha Festival
A three day event which takes place around the 10th of October each year, the main attraction is the Naha Great Tug-O-War. This event has its roots in celebration of the end of Summer and the hope for a plentiful harvest in the next season. Many villages throughout the Ryukyu (Okinawa) Island Chain celebrate with tug-o-wars but, Naha has the largest. It is a Guinness World Record rope that weighs over 40 tons and as many as 200,000 people may attend the event with 15,000 or more joining in on the tug.

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Dragonboat Races in Okinawa

Picture Postcards has been moved to Mondays to help brighten up that back to work feeling.

Golden Week, in late spring in Japan, is a time of celebration, relaxation and dragonboat races. Michael Lynch has contributed this eye-catching photo of one of the largest dragonboats used in the Okinawa races.

Do you have photos to share? Add them to our Picture Postcards of the World photo group, and we’ll pick our favourites to feature on PocketCultures. November’s theme is festivals.

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Diwali celebrations in India

Our regular Picture Postcards Friday post is on Monday this week, with these hot-off-the-press photos of Diwali celebrations in India.

Thanks Sanjay for these photos. Do you have photos to share? Add them to our Picture Postcards of the World photo group, and we’ll pick our favourites to feature on PocketCultures. November’s theme is festivals.

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Okinawa: The Far South in Japan

Closer to Taipei than Tokyo, Okinawa is a chain of islands stretching from Taiwan to Kyushu. Once an independent nation, known as the Ryukyu Kingdom, it prospered as a natural sea lane between China, Japan and all of Southeast Asia and the influences of these cultures are evident today. (more…)