Snapshots: The Kite Festival

Last Sunday, I took my nephews to see the Kite Festival at the Fort. It was a wonderful event. My nephews and my father were able to see an assorted array of kites competing. There were the gorion kites, box kites, kites of monstrous proportions, and other kites that I was not familiar; my personal knowledge of kites is limited to the diamond-shape variety. Amazing how strong the winds were at the Fort. It must be all that open space. The participants did not need to run the jump-start their kites. Kites were group according to type and it would seem judge based on design and performance. We saw the Gorion, box kite, the long kites and the other type of kites, no really a kite expert so I apologize that I cannot really about sure what the specific types are called. All in all it was a fun afternoon brought down only by the heat, which was exhausting despite the strong winds. One of my nephews got a little bit dizzy and irritated and we were in the shade provided by the soft drinks retail stand. Due to the heat we were unable to finish the kite show. We missed the flying of the kites of monstrous proportions – the theme for that day was insect I guess since most of designs of these kites were insect inspired, except for one that seemed to be the pokemon – lapras. I wonder if the show had a kite fight, a dogfight between kites, or what is known in the vernacular as “Kolyahan ng Sarangola”. The object of the game is t o damage the enemy kite while avoiding damage to your own kite. The strings of the combatant kites are prepared by coating it with powdered glass. No I never engaged in a Kite kolyahan. :) Note: Kite playing is traditional Filipino games played during summer in most parts of the Philippines . More pictures from the kite festival...