Here's Kanako sensei with a couple of students.
On Sunday I met up with a couple of teachers from my training, Kevin and Kenny, in Asakusa and we saw this huge festival called Sanja Matsuri - I don't really understand it, but the gist of it is that these guys carry a portable shrine around the streets and there's a lot of drumming and flutes and street vendors selling lots of food. I have some footage that I clipped together with some pictures I took. The first half is mostly footage of the food tents and a couple of really impressive buddha statues. I added music by Pizzacato Five (one of the few J-Pop bands I know) to the beginning, but left the sound on the second half so you can hear the music from the carriage behind the shrine that came through. It was a pretty amazing experience. As the shrine came through, we were all pressed back against the shop walls by the participants who'd locked arms to give the shrine carriers room to get through. I'm not really sure what all of it was about, but it was completely unlike anything I'd ever seen before:
1 comment:
You stumbled upon the largest festival in Tokyo. Sanja Matsuri is for the purpose of entertaining the three (=san) deities and thus entice them to remain in Asakusa. The portable shrines (mikoshi) in this festival are deliberately jostled in the belief that this thrill ride entertains the deities.
Now that summer has arrived, you will probably see a number of festivals during the season. Every town will have a festival. You may even have a festival in your part of Utsunomiya.
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