There are many festivals that happen in Japan throughout the year and I am determined to see as many as I can while I am over here – especially if they happen to be in Himeji. It is fantastic to see so much Japanese culture and celebration events that people can actually attend for free. That’s the part that gets me!!
So today was a shrine festival. We headed to the main street to watch the parade of portable shrines being carried into the castle. These shrines looked amazing. There was so much detail on each one and they were all decorated slightly different. Each shrine weighs one ton and there are about 50 men in costumes carrying each one. The bottom half of the costume is similar to the sumo outfit. On top they were either wearing a shirt or nothing. Inside the shrines are 4 boys who play a drum and chant. I think there were about 10 shrines parading down the street. As the shrines were being carried they would stop and toss them into the air a few times and then keep moving. The people carrying them must be so fit and strong to be able to lift the shrines the entire way. All up I reckon they had to carry them for around 2 kilometres. 
Once all the shrines had entered the castle we were allowed to go inside to have a look. There were thousands of people just wondering around having a look. We asked a lady the meaning behind this festival and she basically said that it is a celebration for harvest. I think there is going to be a similar festival later on in the year – maybe around August.
As there was a festival there were many food stalls set up in a nearby park. We headed over there to eat some lunch. The set up reminded me of the Glendi but of course all the food was Japanese. We tried a variety of things including: barbequed oysters, fried chicken, takoyaki (which are little balls filled with octopus) and then we had some toffee strawberries. It was all very tasty.
They had some drums set up in the park which people could have a turn on. I really wanted to play one so I went over to the area and lined up. This Japanese man called me over so I climbed up onto this wooden frame which had the drum inside. He gave me a lesson on how to use the sticks. The man made it look so easy, but it was much harder than you think. It was fun having a go though. There was a man from the newspaper taking pictures. I felt like a celebrity. Who knows if I will make it to the papers!!
2 comments:
I loved the festival and am looking forward to seeing more. You were getting the hang of the drums by the end -you need more festivals to practice!
That food was so yummy! I wish they would have a festival like that every weekend so that we would never have to cook lunch or tea on weekends!
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