Checking out Sanja Matsuri 2008

Well, here it is… the lowdown on Sanja Matsuri 2008! Even though I had heard that this is one of the largest festivals in Tokyo and that so many people visit it luckily wasn’t as chaotic as I was expecting it to be! I thoroughly enjoyed the festival and although it was crowded in some areas it wasn’t too bad. I believe the main reason for holding the Sanja Matsuri is to pay respect to the men who founded Sensoji Temple. If you would like to read up on my previous escapade in Asakusa you can find the article here:
Spending a day in Asakusa

The main attraction of the Sanja Matsuri is the parade of mikoshi (small shrines) which the locals of Asakusa help to carry around the streets. I’ve heard these mikoshi cost an arm and a leg and quite obviously weigh a lot also, you can tell just from looking at the pictures and the videos that it’s a very exhausting job carrying them around for so long!! Whilst the parade is taking place there is also live music and the sound of the flute and drums can be heard constantly in the backstreets of and down the main road in the town. I was also a little bit surprised to see some people in the parade dressed in traditional Japanese attire of feudal Japan, I’m not sure if the women at the front were geisha because they weren’t wearing normal kimono that standard geisha and maiko wear. I’m going to have to find out what type of people they were dressed as…. well they looked pretty damn cool anyway if ya ask me!!
Just like yesterday there was some impressive taiko drumming on show also. I’m pretty surprised that taiko seems to be popular amongst girls these days! In the afternoon I also saw some children (with some help from adults) carrying around miniature mikoshi!
There was probably more to see but I was quite exhausted so I decided to head home early. At the festival you can also see traditional performances by geisha but you have to buy tickets in advance and I guess they sell out quite quickly. Enjoy the pictures and video!

Apologies again for the bad video quality, I need to figure out what’s going wrong when I upload the videos! Anyway, try to enjoy

Festival season kicks off in Tokyo…

As the days begin to grow longer, warmer and brighter, it’s the perfect time to start holding some festivals in Japan. This weekend festival fever has started to kick in here in Tokyo as the Sanja Matsuri, one of Tokyo’s largest festivals, started on Friday. Today is the last day and I’m going to Asakusa to check out the festival for myself. But I will leave you with some pictures and video that I took from another festival that I went to yesterday. Yesterday I went to Harajuku station because by the Tori (large gate) leading to the Meiji Jingu a group from Kagoshima were holding a festival there. The performance started off slow, with a group of old women singing and dancing rather leisurely along to live shimasen music. Nevertheless, it was quite interesting to see, a lot of old women seem to keep themselves in good shape over here! There was also a horse walking around with a group of men, I’m really not sure of the significance of the horse myself. Anyway, soon after we were in for a genuine treat. The main attraction was a brilliant performance of taiko drumming by a group of men and women hiding behind demon masks! To finish off the show they took off their masks and started to quite literally put a lot more energy into their performance. If you visit Tokyo, try to come during the summer and then you can go to a festival similar to this one! Anyway, now check out the pictures and video below!

Apologies for the low video quality, I’m not sure as to what happened when I uploaded the videos because the original quality is much better. But anyway enjoy!

That’s all for now! Check back later and I should have some good pictures and video from the Sanja Matsuri up then!