Nagasaki Kunchi Matsuri

As I mentioned in my previous post, one of the main reasons Dad and I went to Nagasaki was for the Kunchi Festival. Apparently it's been going on for almost 400 years at Suwa Shrine, the main shrine in town. There were several colourful floats being paraded all over town, including one we saw of a big trading ship.
There were also several "floats" (no idea what they're called), two of which can be seen in the last two pictures, which were each carried by one man at a time. They were quite big, and looked like they'd be very heavy. Someone would be inside carrying it for about 50 metres, and then would stop and do a little dance, spinning around with it. The crowd would go nuts cheering them on, and then they'd have to stop and have a different member of the group take their place.