#16 Japanese Festivals

The key to having a blog is to update regularly, something I have been failing to do. And now, for an update on festivals.

Japanese Festivals:

A float from the Nebuta Aomori festival

Since I arrived in late August and am only staying until a few days before Christmas, I am caught in a festival dry season in Japan. All of the major festivals seem to happen just after Christmas, spring and then the summer. However, I seem to stumble across many smaller regional ones that happen here in Tokyo.

15th September 2012: One such was the Nebuta festival, which is from the Aomori region of Japan, although it is celebrated to a lesser extent in all around Japan, including Tokyo, where I went to the Nakanobu version. It was my first Japanese festival and it was wild - there were children, adults and elderly people all wandering around together in the most outrageous costumes (they looked like rags thrown on together). There were japanese drums and flute-like instruments and the little area was alive with music. The floats were made out of paper with a light underneath, like a giant lantern. I appeared to be the only foreigner there, and an old man actually asked to take a picture with me, which was sweet. He also gave me a little bell with ribbons on it to stick on my tshirt! He could speak English quite well and asked where I was from and what I was doing in Japan, etc.

Lady Gaga would be envious of this head gear

 One of the six floats

A woman playing one of the (really loud) drums

6th October 2012: I also stumbled across a festival in Kawasaki city, Kanagawa (the prefecture right beside Tokyo, only about half an hour away by train). I have no idea what it was called or why it was happening, and I was too chicken to use my petty Japanese skills to find out (I can successfully say what I want, it's just understanding the answer is the problem!). There were no floats when I was there, but there were lots of music and dancers, and I managed to get a few pictures. 

It was so Japanese-y

All the men came out shouting some chant and dancing crazy

This was a frantic, very jump-y dance!

20th October 2012; One of the more well known festivals, I went to the Kawagoe Festival in Saitama, north of Toyko. There were lots and lots of food and nick-knack stalls selling traditional Japanese food and sweets (as well as Western favourites like burgers and cotton candy). The highlight was the massive 3-tier floats being pulled by hoards of people (including me and my friend! A Japanese man we work with was a part of it and allowed us to pull the float, although there were so many people we really just walked beside it). On the floats there are dolls on top, and on the bottom people in kabuki masks dancing and playing drums. Generally the focus was more on the floats, unlike the previous festivals I went to that had alot of people dancing and playing instruments around the floats.

Up close

From far away

Towards the end, all the floats were brought near each other and a sort of "dance off" ensued