It is supposedly a 700 year old festival. I am not sure the meaning of Otouro but it has to do something with either paper lanterns or stone. They danced with paper so I might be safe to side with that. My wife lived for more than 20 years in the US and isn't familiar with the festivals. The are praising some gods that is for sure. The city jinja and Otera were decorated to invite people to go and worship at these places. They have the taiko drums drumming that has a very melodic repetitive beat that just can drive you nuts. The Ladies dancing were at least 40 to 50 women getting into the groove of this click clack dance. They had these clackers that made a real loud noise and they did a very lively dance. I was asking Mihoko do they just practice this dance all year round like a square dance club. This is the clacker club. It might be like the clap on clap off club many of you are apart of. 
The one thing that just turned our stomach was that the vendor guys were all smoking over the very food they were cooking. No hats and in that one picture the guy has an ash that is about ready to fall into the yakiniku he is making or was it takoyaki. I only remember the cigarette and the grossed out feeling I had. It was a definite culture shock. Japan still allows smoking in the restaurants here. They are getting better but some places we just can't go into because the separation is a wood divider on a table for 4 and they will have 2 smokers on one side and 2 non-smokers on the other. You can see over the divider and it is very disgusting. Anyway, pray we can adjust and not get second hand smoke cancer. We didn't learn about this festival until a week ago. Pray that in the future we can use these festivals to pass out tracks and even go for a booth to bless the kids and love on the citizens. 
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