What is your favorite spring/summer festival in Japan?

10 comments

1. I’ve been to a number of summer festivals, but nothing compares to Awa Odori in Tokushima. The festival starts around 6 PM with a parade of the highest level dancers, lasting a couple hours. After that, the whole city becomes a giant dance floor and descends into chaos until 4 AM. Repeat that for 3 days.

   https://youtu.be/M1OS_yHZ5aQ

2. My itinerary has me travelling between Tokyo and Kyoto just when it happens to be two festivals I have read about – **Kanda matsuri** and **Aoi matsuri.**

   I have incorporated them loosely into the day (i.e. still researching to try and find a nice spot to stand to watch and also how long I should loosely & reasonably allow to watch for – i.e. are we talking it being a fly past and it being an hour or so or will it be a full afternoon activity).
   I have currently planned to maybe be ‘somewhere’ in Akihabara mid-afternoon for Kanda matsuri, and finding somewhere between Shimogamo and Kamigamo shrines late afternoon in Kyoto.

   I’m looking forward to seeing recommendations from other people who may have visited during these festivals as to where they stood and their own memories

   My itinerary route (just for the festival days)

   Saturday – Tokyo during **’Kanda matsuri’**
   Sunday – Hakone
   Monday – Kyoto during **’Aoi matsuri’**

3. I’ll be in Kyoto in early-mid July. Is that around when Gion Matsuri’s gonna be in full swing?

4. Are there any well-known summer festivals occurring in August? 🙂

5. Anyone have an opinion on/experience with Golden Week festivals?

6. i ended up catching it totally by accident not knowing

   1. that it was a thing
   2. that it was happening when i was there

   but the hirosaki castle cherry blossom festival was awesome. by dumb coincidence the day in 2018 we went to check out the castle, we were walking around afterwards and found the festival.

   turns out it’s an annual event. (if i’m in japan at the same time again, i’ll definitely be doing that again)

7. Many years ago, I randomly chanced upon the Kishiwada Danjiri matsuri when visiting Osaka. While most other festivals are pretty safe and orderly affairs, Kishiwada has the potential of (literal) death and destruction. Imagine a huge mob of people pulling multi-ton danjiris through narrow streets as fast as possible; danjiri drag racing, if you will. It’s apparently much safer nowadays since they are forced to slow down for the turns. It’s got great energy and vibe; one of my favourite memories from Japan (Fortunately there weren’t any accidents when I was there.)

8. Kawasaki Daishi windchime festival/market

   Really cool and unique and thousands of wind chimes from artisans across the country are available for purchase.

   You have your standard festival food and tooooons of wind chime booths.

9. I will be in Tokyo the last week of May, and Kyoto the first week of June, are there any festivals I should be on the lookout for?

10. I caught the Nagoya fertility festival last month. I think someone mentioned it on here and we adjusted our trip to make sure we were there. Was a wild day, penis shaped food everywhere, penis flats, penis wood, penis stones all over the place. Then a huge wooden penis is paraded down the street from one shrine to another while girls run around handing our sake to anyone that wants it.

    Fun day.