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August 2024
And then the next week I got to go to another festival! Once again I had an unbelievable 24 hours off. I slept most of the day because I really needed it. I had offered to get a ticket to the festival for my mom, but she was afraid that she wouldn’t have enough energy so she decided to stay on the ship. There was a special crew tour and I was honored when my Japanese teammates insisted that I be on the same bus, so we could all sit together.
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Bye Diamond Princess!
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On the ship, Hiroshi was hosting the theater with Andi (the English Cruise Director) so Mikiko (the Japanese Cruise Director) could go to the festival. I told my mom to go watch him and support him since I couldn’t be there.
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We were seated right across from the guests who came to all of my events, so they shouted at me like I was a celebrity.
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I had a front row seat.
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The different groups slowly danced down the street right in front of us.
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It was so cool.
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It went on for hours.
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And then a giant kitty showed up.
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Then the kids came through with such precise moves.
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There were drums and musical instruments.
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We snuck out before it ended so we could get back to our tour bus on time. A few weeks later, we had a folkloric show that I hosted in the Princess theater with dancers from this region. I was so excited that I could tell them that I saw the actual festival that their show represented. I also took a lot of videos which I will post attached to this blog post on Facebook.