About 140 people paraded through Tokyo's Ueno Park Saturday with handmade portable shrines as part of the events designed to support the city's bid to host the 2020 Olympics.
Tokyo is, along with Madrid and Istanbul, one of three cities vying for the chance to host the world’s largest sporting event. The host city will be announced in Buenos Aires on Sept. 7.
People of all ages participated in Saturday's event, which was titled "V Colors — Go to 2020." Divided into five groups, participants jointly shouldered bamboo globes, 2 meters in diameter and representing the multicolored Olympic rings. The constructions were inspired by mikoshi, the portable shrines believed to house deities and traditionally paraded around shrines for Shinto festivals.
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