I'm going a little out of order, because we did do much over Golden Week. But last weekend we went to
Sanja Matsuri, one of the top 3 festivals in Tokyo.
Matsuri is the word for festival. It was in
Asakusa at the
Sensoji Temple. That's me with my spiral cut potato. See, festival food is not just fish on a stick!
Each of the neighborhoods in
Asakusa has a portable shrine (called
mikoshi) that they parade around the streets and take to the big shrine to be blessed by the Shinto priests. There are smaller shrines for the kids to carry and big ones for the adults. They're all shiny.
Gen likes the kids'
bandannas.
Here's one of the grown-up shrines. It looks really heavy. It's carried by at least 20-30 people and more people surround them, chanting and clapping. I assume the chanters are relief troops. Seriously, it looks
really heavy.
There were a lot of people there. Each group has a designated time to march so they just milled about before. It goes on pretty much all day. We were there for around 4 hours and it was still going strong when we left.
When we were looking for a restroom we happened upon the holding area for all the
mikoshi before they were paraded to the big shrine. We stupidly tried to walk alongside them to get to said restrooms, but that was a bad plan. At least 70 people accompany each shrine so we got a little stuck. And let me tell you, Japanese people have no compunction about shoving you out of their way. I felt like a pinball.
Each neighborhood has a different
happi (short robe) with their specific character on the back. The women normally wear leggings underneath, but the men vary. Some wear pants, but a lot wear lovely booty shorts. And some go the really traditional route and just wear thongs (like the sumo wrestlers). I got quite an eyeful!
Overall this was one of the best festivals. I think I say that about every one we go to, but it really was a lot of fun.
Asakusa is one of our favorite places. It's considered the old style Tokyo, I guess because there aren't a lot of high rises or nightclubs. I've tried to post a short video below, but I don't know if it will work. It's less than a minute and it shows one of the
mikoshi parading past where we were standing.
(Edited to add: The video worked for me. I hope you guys can see it!)
I'm going a little out of order, because we did do much over Golden Week. But last weekend we went to Sanja Matsuri, one of the top 3 festivals in Tokyo. Matsuri is the word for festival. It was in Asakusa at the Sensoji Temple. That's me with my spiral cut potato. See, festival food is not just fish on a stick!
Each of the neighborhoods in Asakusa has a portable shrine (called mikoshi) that they parade around the streets and take to the big shrine to be blessed by the Shinto priests. There are smaller shrines for the kids to carry and big ones for the adults. They're all shiny.
Gen likes the kids' bandannas.
Here's one of the grown-up shrines. It looks really heavy. It's carried by at least 20-30 people and more people surround them, chanting and clapping. I assume the chanters are relief troops. Seriously, it looks really heavy.
There were a lot of people there. Each group has a designated time to march so they just milled about before. It goes on pretty much all day. We were there for around 4 hours and it was still going strong when we left.
When we were looking for a restroom we happened upon the holding area for all the mikoshi before they were paraded to the big shrine. We stupidly tried to walk alongside them to get to said restrooms, but that was a bad plan. At least 70 people accompany each shrine so we got a little stuck. And let me tell you, Japanese people have no compunction about shoving you out of their way. I felt like a pinball.
Each neighborhood has a different happi (short robe) with their specific character on the back. The women normally wear leggings underneath, but the men vary. Some wear pants, but a lot wear lovely booty shorts. And some go the really traditional route and just wear thongs (like the sumo wrestlers). I got quite an eyeful!
Overall this was one of the best festivals. I think I say that about every one we go to, but it really was a lot of fun. Asakusa is one of our favorite places. It's considered the old style Tokyo, I guess because there aren't a lot of high rises or nightclubs. I've tried to post a short video below, but I don't know if it will work. It's less than a minute and it shows one of the mikoshi parading past where we were standing. (Edited to add: The video worked for me. I hope you guys can see it!)
Yay! It worked! Miss you guys!
ReplyDeleteLindsay