Nodai fall festival

Last weekend was Nodai’s 118th annual fall festival: full of plants for sale, silly costumes, various pageants, ethnic food from world students (Chinese, Brazilian, Korean, Filipino, Mexican, Nepalese and more), and the nationally famous radish dancing.

The main gate was decorated with this amazing live plant wall full of flowers and textures. One of the students from the Zoen (Landscape Architecture Science) department helped install it.

The side entrance was decorated with a faux wood castle gate, a huge dragon mural, and a collage that incorporated daikon radish with pumpkin and Halloween witch.

After the jump, more photos of costumes, pageants, floats, food and more.

Here you can see the simple structure to hang the temporary green wall. Basically they used scaffolding and plywood to build a structure that was vertical with a slight angle. Plastic tray with circular shapes held the potted plants for the the festival. I assume the plants were then re-used elsewhere later.

Inside the gates, students loudly advertised their wares: fresh vegetables, plants, and food. The stalls were organized by various interest groups (like the snowboard club and others based on nationality).

There were also tons of strange costumes.

Delicious ethnic foods.

Stuffed animals representing something agricultural, perhaps.

Amazingly detailed recycling for every type of waste, including special receptacles for chopsticks and for wood skewers.

Lots of art projects, including omikoshi and other portable floats.

And finally there were two pageants: a Mr and Miss Nodai, with big men’s hair, and a “Mr. 美人コンテスト” with boys dressed as girls.