The two Japanese guys who were on our rowing team this year live in the same area as me in Honjo. They invited me and my friends to take part in the local Ōnomichi chōnai (大の道町内) festival on 20 September. We practiced twice at my local community centre (大の道公民館), which I just discovered existed!
We were practicing a simple enough beat on the taiko (太鼓). We needed to have 2 drummers at any given time, one rhythm and the other on main beat. There were also a group of fue (笛) players. And everyone shouts out the word sore (それ）, multiple times!
On our second night of practice, the day before the festival, we had plenty of free food and drinks given to us. We ate what has now become usual to us; yakitori, yakisoba and okonomiyaki. And we drank sake from square wooden cups!
And after a late night we got up and returned to the community centre for 8am the next morning for the opening ceremony of the festival. And it's customary to open any good ceremony with a shot of sake; so that was when our started drinking!
We were the first group to lead the drumming. Basically the group tours around the local area. People watch from the side of the street, and random people come out of their houses and give large bottles of sake to us! Some people even give out envelopes with money inside!
We made our first pit stop after about 15 minutes. We stopped outside a house and were ushered into an open garage. In the centre of the garage was a table with onigiris, pickled vegetables, miscellaneous meats and large bottles of beer and of course sake.
After indulging ourselves for about 15 to 20 minutes we were each given towels and told that we would be carrying the portable shrine, called a mikoshi (御輿, 神興 or 神輿) for a while. The towels were to pad our shoulders as the shrine was quite heavy.
When we picked it up and placed it on our shoulders it quickly became apparent that most of us foreigners were taller than the Japanese guys we were with. Some of the guys could not get their shoulders high enough to take any of the weight! Our chant also changed from sore to wasshoi (わっしょい).
We continued carrying the shrine and chanting for the rest of the day. We made regular stops at houses around Honjo. Eating and drinking without fail at each stop! Some people were even slamming large glasses of sake at 10am!!
I can't actually remember what time the festival ended (probably 5 or 6pm), but when it did we went to Yumiko's house for sushi and alcoholic refreshments. And after about two hours there we headed back to Jez's apt for bit of a party there.
It was one of the most enjoyable days I have had since I arrived in Japan!
The Shōbu Carnival (菖蒲カーニバル) is the first summer festival in Honjo every year. It's a small street festival where people of all ages dance to a single song, the Shōbu song I believe, played over and over again. And it draws huge local crowds every year. And there are lots of stalls selling festival food!
We went to the park to indulge in some yakisoba and beer and found that there was a band playing there. The band, Bronze, were an interesting bunch. They had bass, sax, drums and guitar/koto. Koto is a traditional Japanese instrument and usually played with the fingers and small small picks attached to your fingers. This band was using sticks to play it! I took this video.
The next day, 1st August, I met Akagawa-san to climb Mt. Gassan. He's a 56 year old guy I went hiking with last year, I think he's the head of a hiking group in Yokote city. Mt. Gassan (月山) is the highest of the three holy mountains in Dewa Sanzan, a 2 and a half hour drive south from where I live.
It was a little bit cloudy during our hike but pretty good conditions otherwise. The hike itself was not that difficult for me. But I was really surprised with the age of some people who were climbing it. There was definitely men and women over 70 years of age climbing it! And on the way up with found an old woman lying down, barely able to talk. She had decided to climb on her own, and obviously wasn't able for it. Some guys called the rescue crew to get her!
This is a statue that you can pray to for long life.
When we arrived at the summit we paid 500 yen to have a priest to say a prayer over us, and Akagawa-san was there to pray for his daughter to pass her entrance exam into high school.
We made good time coming down, and went for an onsen before we headed back home.
That sunburned evening I went to the second summer festival in Honjo, the Honjo Fireworks River Festival (本荘川まつり花火大会). Fireworks are really popular in Japan, and a lot more impressive than the shows we get at home.
The next day I headed to Amori prefecture to see the Nebuta Festival. It was a 4 hour drive north to Hirosaki where our hostel was, and then another train journey to Aomori city. Nebuta is a large scale lantern festival. Unfortunately when we were there it was lightly raining so all the floats had plastic sheets protecting them. It was very impressive none the less! In the picture you can see all the people under the float pushing it around.
The next day, Monday, we went to see rice field artistry! I had only discovered this place actually existed the week before. I had seen pictures on the Internet a long time ago but assumed that it was created using computers. The tambo art is in a place called Inakadate, close to Hirosaki city. You can climb up a castle and look down on the fields. It was really amazing!
They had a free outdoor foot onsen right beside the fields too, which was a nice little addition.
We then left Aomori and headed back to Akita city for my fourth festival in as many days, Kanto festival (竿燈まつり). This is a really cool festival where glowing lanternsin the shape of rice ears, are balanced on peoples hands, hips and heads (like the guy in this photo!).
This is a cool video I took at the end of the festival, when the guys really didn't care about damaging their lanterns!
In Akita most of the winter festivals are on around the same time, and many overlap. So it's often a choice between going to a festival this year, or waiting till next year. This year we ambitiously decided that we would visit 3 different festivals on February 15th; Inukko Matsuri (犬っ子祭り) in Yuzawa, Kamakura Matsuri (かまくら祭り) in Yokote, and the famous Takeuchi Matsuri (竹うち祭り) in Rokugō, Misato.
We left Honjo at about 13:30 in 3 cars and headed for the Inukko Matsuri. This dog festival has large snow sculptures of houses and dogs. This year the weather has been warmer and although it was snowing while we were there, it hadn't snowed in about a week and a half beforehand. So the sculptures we not as impressive as the pictures I had seen from last year. Many were broken or melting, but still it was impressive. And we got given free sake and had festival food, and spoke to random Japanese people who wanted to practice their English.
Next we headed for Yokote, to the Kamakura festival. This festival has hundreds of Kamakuras of various sizes. Some are 2 metres tall others are about a foot in height. The larger are made by piling up and compacting snow, then the inside is hollowed out. Local people relax inside the Kamakuras while drinking hot Amazake and eating grilled mochi. They welcome anyone in to share with them and to take pictures. They have large sculptures too, one was a large sumo wrestler which Phil titled Asa-snow-ryū after Asashōryū; currently the best yokozuna in sumo.
By the river there were hundreds of small kamakura that elementary children had built. We all tried our best to take nice photos of them, but night photos are difficult to take! I like this one though!
It was getting close to 19:00 so we needed to get moving. Phil's younger brother who is here on holidays here at the moment was to partake in, and hopefully not become the next death victim of the Takeuchi festival.
The Takeuchi festival is one of the more different festivals I've encountered. The small town of Rokugō divides into two teams, the north team and the south team. They are fighting for their livelihoods, and their lives! It is believed that if the south team wins, this traditional festival, the price of rice will go up. And if the north team wins, it is believed that the following season with yield a good harvest. Both outcomes are beneficial for the small town! Foreigners are allowed participate in this festival, but must be on the south team.
So armed with 20-foot bamboo poles and wearing a variety of different helmets, including motorbike, hockey, snowboard and hardhats the two teams line up. They drink some more sake, rattle their poles together to psyche themselves up, and await the bell to signal round one!
When the fight begins the bamboo poles crash down on the heads, shoulders, or backs of the opposing team members. The poles are then raised back up, if possible, and strike back down again. The poles often shatter from the impact and become even more dangerous. As the round progresses the poles are no longer used so people resort to punching and kicking each other. And as much alcohol has been consumed it often takes a while to break up the fights after the bell has been rung to end the round.
The fighters have about 10 minutes to gather their wounded members and regroup. The poles are removed from the battlefield and new poles are distributed. Again the bell is rung, more people get cracked on the head, after a while the bell signals again, and the fighting has to be broken up again.
Before the 3rd and final round there is a ceremony. And in the centre of the battlefield two huge fires are lit. The poles with flags at the top are ignited. Its then time for round 3!
I'm not sure how they decide who the winner is; it may have to do with how far the opposition is pushed back. Maybe! I think the winner is not so important to many of the people who have forgotten about the festival and just want to fight! This year the festival was not as aggressive as last year. Many people were more injured last year. Some of my friends were knocked to the ground and kicked in the head. One had broken teeth; another had large cuts under both his eyes. This year I didn't see any of that! A little disappointing! Below is a picture of one of the guys from last year.
Below is a picture of Scottish Dave after his experience of the festival last year. He got separated from his group and singled out, something he ensured didn't happen this time around!
Around 21:00 we decided to head for home. It had been snowing all day, so there was a lot of snow on the roads. I was in David's jeep and we were speaking of how recently I had been driving behind a friend on the way to a ski jo, when she lost control on a straight road, spun 180 degrees and bounced of the far side of the road. We were discussing the best way to react in such a situation; we both agreed that braking was not the way to go! Then 10 minutes later as we were going around a bend in Ouchi, a little faster that what would have been a safe speed for the conditions, we lost control of the jeep. In fairness David's reaction was very good and he avoided the initial instinct to step on the brakes. We were going around a turn to the right, but we were heading for the right barrier. David contained the jeeps slide and managed to get it to veer back to the left, unfortunately he overcompensated slightly and then we were heading for the left barrier. We braced for the inevitable impact, which was absorbed well by the barrier and the fact that we hit it on an angle. We were both fine. We pulled the car off the road to have a look. The bullbar took most of the impact, but was pushed back into the car at an angle, and one of the lights was smashed.
We drove to the nearest convenience store and took another look. Now we realised that the radiator was leaking quickly. So we thought it best to leave it there till the morning. I rang one of the other cars to let them know what happened and to get a life. So when Phil arrived David and myself packed into Phil's car that already had 4 people in it!
We had a cosy journey back to Honjo. But just about 100 metres from our destination at a traffic light, we needed to make a right. The conversation was about what Phil’s name would be if he were a superhero. It was decided he would be called Wolver-rib; he currently has a cracked rib from a snowboarding accident. As we waited for a space to go, or the green arrow I was looking out through the windscreen that had only one wiper working. In a moment of madness Wolver-rib forgot that six people were in his aging car, that there was a solid layer of snow on the road, that he wasn’t in fact a superhero, and decided to go through a small space between a car and a large truck! As our acceleration was very slow, I watched the truck approach, my eyes widening with every metre it approached. Finally the car wheels stopped spinning on the snow and managed to get some grip, we just avoided the truck, but the car wasn't completely interested in going where the wheels were pointing. Wolver-rib’s brother words were “I don’t think you’d make a very good superhero!” And with that we crashed straight into the barrier in front of us!
Two car crashes in under an hour, and I still wasn't home. I removed the thick layer of snow from my car and drove home very slowly!
On 10th of February every year there is a Balloon Festival in Kamihinokinai, Nishiki, Semboku City, Akita. Huge hot air paper balloons are released. They were between 8 to 12 metres in height and about 3 metres in diameter. The balloons are first filled with hot air from gas hoses, and then a ball of material soaked in fuel is attached and ignited. The balloons can travel for kilometres or crash nearby. I don't know if they collect the balloons afterwards, to be honest I don't see how they could!
There are two festivals on the same date every year, and they are a little apart, the other festival being the Giant Tug of war in Kariwano, Daisen City. We decided to try to make it the two festivals. But the Balloon Festival was further away than we thought. We still tried to make the Tug of war, but arrived just as it ended.
We stayed at the Balloon festival for only about 30 minutes, but it was really impressive. These are some of the video clips we took while there.
