I just wanted to give a bump to the Ome Grand Festival, as there is limited info on it, and I thought it was incredible. In sum, it fulfilled my fanboy dreams.
You start your excursion with an excellent train ride through the outskirts of Tokyo. Ome is a lovely town, and if you are a big nerd who grew up watching anime in the late 90’s/early 2000’s, it has that nostalgic look, exposed power lines and all.
The festival itself was incredible. The floats (dashi) were great, and there were more than I thought there would be. The dancers and drummers were incredible, and the procession lines of people lugging the floats along on massive ropes were unending. The floats would face each other and have a sort of dance off for lack of a better term, which was great fun. The festival food was everything you could want from Japanese festival food, again if you are into anime, you will find the iconic festival foods here. If you looked, you could even find vendors selling massive 32 oz plastic cups of draft Asahi (which is the correct choice for beer in Japan unless you are in Hokkaido). I even got to have some sake straight out of the taru (sake barrel) at one of the judges tables, which was really fun.
We were one of maybe 10 total other foreigners we saw during the entire day, so knowing serviceable Japanese was certainly handy, though I imagine you could get by with just a few key phrases. Don’t expect English to be spoken here (or really anywhere else in Japan).
Tips and tricks: go on the last day of the festival, this is when the floats converge together, instead of scattered throughout the town. Have plenty of cash on you, everything you buy will be cash only. Look out for a little Oni Giri shop if you are hungry for something other than festival food, it is along the Main Street. If you want to take in the festival in the best way possible, I would consider renting a house for a few nights during the festival. There were houses with balconies overlooking the festival, and I saw people having nice little parties. Overall, this festival provides everything you could want in a traditional Matsuri except fireworks. Can’t have it all, but you get close with the Ome Grand Festival.
Lastly, you will notice that this festival is typically towards the end of Golden Week. I can tell you that being in Tokyo during Golden Week isn’t just fine, but I would say it’s one of the least known secrets of traveling in Japan that Tokyo empties out during Golden Week as many of the residents leave to go on domestic vacations or visit family out of town at that time. I will one day make a post on this as its own topic.
by FlounderGood5024