In the late 1860’s, Japan’s new Meiji government decided that Hakodate was less than ideal as the capital of Hokkaido, and began looking for a more central and defensible location. Stakes were high, as the government had decided to make the colonization and development of the northern island a centr...
Okayama Prefecture's most famous festival is its Naked Festival. But for those with a taste for the slightly odd, there is a lesser known festival in Okayama that you should probably consider attending.
Aida-cho is a beautiful little town, set among the green hills of eastern Okayama, one of severa...
Aomori is the northernmost city on Japan’s main island of Honshu. In fairness to the city, it’s never made more than halfhearted attempts at becoming a tourist center. Around the city, there are some fascinating Jomon era archaeological sites, a good food market, and several regional museums that mi...
It’s happened every New Year's Eve for centuries. After dark, a lone figure stalks up the snowy path to the front door of a house. Knocking on the door, he asks whether anyone in the house is ill, has died in the past year, or is newly married. If the answer to all three questions is no, the mysteri...
Otorii gate in the sea before the shrine. A large wooden ball is placed on a platform and hung from the scaffold by ropes. As the festival begins young men, mostly from the island, enter the water wearing only loincloths. At a signal, the platform bearing the ball begins to swing, rise and dip crazi...
During the great Bon Festival, held across Japan in August to honor the spirits of the dead, O-Bon dancing is performed throughout the country. There are many local variants on the dance, but perhaps the best known is Tokushima’s Awa Odori, the “Great Dance of Awa.”
The most widely told story of...
Itsukushima Shrine’s Chinkasai Festival is held every December 31st, providing a show visitors are unlikely to forget. The festival is intended to protect both the Shrine and the town from disastrous fires, a real concern where, traditionally, close-set buildings were constructed largely of wood and...
Nara Tokae Festival Started in 1999, what the Nara Tokae Festival lacks in history it more than makes up for in visual impact. For ten nights in August, tens of thousands of candle lanterns are lit across the city. Hanging from bridges, lining the paths to the city’s shrines and temples, and even se...
In 1956, a group of citizens in Fukuyama planted 1,000 young roses in what had been Minami park with the intention healing wartime wounds. In time, it became a local practice among companies, schools and public offices to plant roses to mark various ceremonies and events. With additional gifts of ro...
Kanpai! Every year, for two wonderful days in October, the town of Saijo in Higashi-Hiroshima transforms itself into one enormous party.
Saijo is a sake town, and proud of it. The local brewing industry has a history stretching back over 300 years, and even today plays a major role in the life of...
The Kangensai Festival is Itsukushima Shrine’s most important event of the year, with roots going back to Taira no Kiyomori’s reconstruction of the Shrine in the 12th century.
Kangen is instrumental music, as opposed to accompaniment for dances, performed on the wind, string and percussion instr...
The Japanese dances collectively called kagura were originally performed at shrines for the pleasure of the Shinto gods. In the 19th century, it began to be seen more as a sort of folk entertainment than strictly a religious ritual. The dances reenact well known scenes from myth and legend, with d...
