If you’re thinking about going to the Kurama fire festival, choose a different festival or enjoy the temple night illuminations in Kyoto instead.
We went to check-out the Kurama fire festival today, and were shocked by the number of foreign visitors cramming the streets. If I had known ahead of time how bad it was going to be, we wouldn’t have gone.
Kurama is a tiny town just outside of Kyoto, and there’s a lovely mountain temple and shrine there, and an interesting 2 hour hike through the mountains to the next town. I would recommend a visit to Kurama at any other time- truly a charming place.
We arrived for the festival at about 5pm (festival start scheduled for 6pm), and there were already hundreds of foreign tourists crowding the streets (about 10 foreigners for every 1 Japanese person), especially lots of tour groups. The city of Kyoto sent about 100 extra police officers just to help with crowd crowd control.
For everyone’s safety there was a walking route set-up to tour the festival but the groups of tourists kept standing in clumps and completely and purposefully ignoring the instructions from the officers, and just being generally disrespectful to the local townsfolk – Super rude! It was a terrible atmosphere for what was supposed to be a special festive occasion.
It felt like the festival had been given the hug of death. Being a foreign tourist myself, I was ashamed at how all the tourists came to clog up the town that was just trying to have a nice little local festival. The streets are really small and not set-up to accommodate 7 thousand extra people.
The train is just a tiny 2-car style rural commuter train, so rail service to and from Kurama is Tokyo rush-hour level of people all squished in butts-to-nuts. Highly unpleasant.
We left as soon as we could and didn’t even see the beginning of the festivities because we felt so embarrassed by how everyone else was acting.
If you love Japan and being immersed in local culture, give this festival a pass, and find a different fall festival somewhere else – there are so many of them!
Try the Nada no Kenka Fighting Festival near Himeji – it’s exciting and much better set-up for large groups of tourists. Also fall night illuminations have already started at Kodai-ji Temple and Entoku-in Temple, and aren’t super busy yet because it’s early in the season.
R.I.P. Kurama Fire Festival.
26 comments
> The streets are really small and not set-up to accommodate 7 thousand extra people.
7,000 extra people do not make much difference.
Consider this: local summer fireworks festivals can draw crowds order (or two) of magnitude greater.
Am I reading this right? Is a tourist… complaining about tourists? If you’re mad at tourist being there, and you were there yourself.. are you not part of the problem?
But festivals of all magnitude can be packed. It’s always been a headache getting out and around them. Even prior to covid and the suspension of extra transit lines.
What you are describing is pretty much the normal for lots of festivals.. like the kamakura fireworks and also my experience at a few festivals in Hakone. Both slammed with domestic tourist and locals with a few internationals/
> R.I.P. Kurama Fire Festival.
Am I missing something? Are they canceling it or are you just being overly dramatic
Just got back from a trip around Japan, and out of all the places we went Kyoto is the one we felt the most bad about. It’s a beautiful city, obviously, but it is so overrun with tourists (and I’m aware we contributed to that that), it felt…sad. Like this once beautiful old town is just something to be gawked at. It felt like there were more tourists than locals there.
I understand what you’re saying and will agree, it’s packed and getting more busy again (i live in Kansai for like 7 years now), but honestly festivals are often very busy and cramped unless you find yourself a rather local one (they are cute but there’s usually less happening there!)
There’s a festival in northern Kyoto (kyotango area) in winter which is similar, bur you can only get thee by car. Its less busy there for sure!:)
R.I.P. is what is offered as condolences to the deceased. The festival is not dead. It continues.
Many festivals near where I live have very few foreigners and all of those things are still things that occur at them including the overcrowding and not following rules. While I can kind of understand being embarrassed as a tourist yourself, I promise you it’s not just this festival and it’s not just foreign tourists.
This post is weird. As a tourist, are you expecting to see some sort of special “uninhabited by other tourists” version of Japan which only lives in your mind? Like an exclusive destination just for you or something. Haha what a wild concept. Did you see any locals complaining or petitioning to shut it down or anything? If not, chill, my dude.
You think you are better than everyone else don’t you? You the foreign tourist, complaining about foreign tourists.
Lmao get the fuck out of here with the “Japan is for me, not for thee” bullshit. Nothing more cringy than gatekeeping tourists.
Ahhh the irony 🤣
I’m pretty sure when I was in Kyoto over twenty years ago i was told to avoid the Kurama fire festival as it is always super crowded. Make of that what you will.
“im a tourist and I’m upset that there are other tourists who are trying to do the same thing I do”
Times change. Yes, it is unfortunate that this event that used to feel like a special secret for just you, isn’t anymore (even though it is selfish to even think that). Increased popularity and tourism have done this to many areas of Japan. Arguably even subs like this contribute to the problem, but Japan is a very popular place to travel to, and many people who had trips planned for 2020 are instead going now. At least for the next few years, you’re just gonna see this everywhere.
No offense to you, but posts like this do nothing to actually solve anything, and just cause more division. Instead, be happy that businesses in those areas are finally able to recoup some of the money they lost during the pandemic.
In June 2019, we tried to go to the Yanagidani Kannon Hydrangea festival, also located a little outside of the main part of Kyoto. We were the only foreigners trying to go. We waited for a bus to take us to the temple for over 2 hours with the only real movement of people being when the Japanese gave up and left the line before we too gave up. I have no idea how crowded the actual temple, was, but based on the traffic and line for the bus, I’m going with very. Buses and cars could not reach the temple, causing the buses which were supposed to come every 20 minutes to just not come at all.
A lot of Japanese festivals are just really really crowded and not just because of tourism.
One of the “great” things about covid, traveling around Japan without any foreign tourists and few domestic ones as well. Throw in the free Go To Travel ¥ we got as residents and it was amazing.
Covid also led to the huge expansion of cashless payments and food takeout/delivery which are very convenient
RIP to your fantasy of being at a festival with only Japanese people and a sensible crowd, right? Not RIP the festival itself because what you described is the complete opposite of RIP.
This is too funny. A tourist bitching about tourists 🤣
Tourism overload is not a new situation in Kyoto and the immediate area. The Chinese tourist explosion first made Kyoto just plain crowded when it raised it’s ugly head (and other places as well). Wall-to-wall selfies and crowds. There is a lull in the Chinese market but the post-Covid crowds have returned partly as a result of the power of the USD. Also to blame are the Japanese themselves as they’ve turned inwards since the yen depreciated and Covid scares. If you go to an organized tourist event, a concert, or anything else similar in Japan you will, more than likely, find crowds. Keep that in mind before going.
“immersed in local culture”? Ha. What does that mean? No crowds? No tourists? Someone help me, I’m drowning in a sea of culture…and get out of my space.
I do love to read a good thread backfire.
Hold up, aren’t you a tourist yourself? I understand that crowds are exhausting, but I don’t get complaining about others when you’re also part of the problem.
I went to Kurama Hi Matsuri when I lived in Osaka back in 2011. It was so crowded back then we couldn’t move.
That’s just Kurama Hi Matsuri. It’s a big draw. Nothing to do with “foreign tourists”
A lot of these towns feed off of tourism. I was in kyoto last week and yea there was a lot of ppl there but especially with Japan being in a recession we were more than welcomed. Gtfo with this holier than thought attitude. “I can’t believe this tourist destination has tourist”
Lmao OP getting rekt in this thread
Thank you for posting, OP. People love to play scolding parent and it makes them feel self-righteous to find fault in others.
However, as a tourist if I read this and was planning to go there, I would probably change my plans. That’s the point of the post – to provide realistic information to others. So this is valuable, despite the unnecessarily harsh comments.
Much prefer this to the dozens of daily posts asking others to check their itineraries that inevitably have a plan to visit TeamLabs at 9am on Tuesday 3 weeks from now…
You’re not in traffic, you are traffic
my guy YOU are the tourist