The Abare matsuri in Ishikawa is also known as the Brave Sea Festival, ‘Abare’ means ‘Powerful’ and has some 330 years of history. It started as a counteract to a violent epidemic then raging in the area. The festival has a reputation to be the most fierce in all of Japan. The main features of the festival are around 50 so called kiriko-floats (which are also used for other smaller festivals all over the place from july to october) and two small mikoshis (little shrines) which are ultimately going on a frenetic rampage of destruction where participants try their best to trash them.

I guess the fierceness of this festival was slightly dampened this year by all the rain and bad weather going on. I expected to see some fires, but there weren’t any this time.  Nevertheless, i really enjoyed the vibe at this festival and Ishikawa itself is also a really nice region with plenty of nature and nice things. It’s well worth a trip if you are in Japan early in July! The festival happens every year on the first Friday and Saturday of July.

There are plenty of other festivals (Nada Kenka Matsuri and the Kishiwada Danjiri come to mind) were some people actually die every now and then that are probably more fierce then this one, but i guess i will have to go again next year to see for myself and hope for better weather this time!

Transport: Coming by car or in a tourist group by coach/bus is probably the best option. There are no trains going to Noto and accommodation is very limited. The closest you can come to Noto is to take the train to Nanao/Anamizu and then from there take a bus (another ~30km).

Website: Noto town website has information about it in Japanese.

Tonight was fun, Itsuki brought some guests home for dinner – workmates from her part time job at a local vet nurse college and two americans who are on visit from another vet nurse university from the States.

Interestingly the workmates also brought their kids and firework with them which made for an interesting finale of the evening.

Pepsi has done it again. It suspect they use the Japanese population for their drink-taste experiments … or at least i am not aware of Pepsi doing anything like this in other markets. Every year there are at least 1 or 2 special flavored drinks available in the convenience stores and this time we get to enjoy the taste of africa! It looks like elephant p*** but the taste is actually quite ok. Baobab is a type of tree native to mostly Madagascar (as well as mainland Africa and Australia). Both the leaves and the fruits (also called “monkey’s bread”) of the baobab are edible, but are not commonly found or eaten outside of Africa. The drink tastes a lot like Gingerale … but there are certainly some subtle differences between real Gingerale and this drink.

The Yotaka matsuri in Fukuno reminded me a lot of the big Nebuta matsuris happening in summer in the Aomori region. The floats aren’t as tall at the Fukuno Yotaka but still very impressive and nice to watch! Day 2 of the festival is the highpoint, when late at night the floats battle each other while young men riding on them try to destroy and damage each others floats. The whole spectacle reminded me a lot of old pirate movies .. when the floats drive up to each other side by side and battle it out.

The festival was a lot of fun to watch. The crowd was still manageable and i could move around freely with my camera … usually if a festival is nice to watch then big crowds will turn up and police usually

Transport: Toyama-Ken is a bit outside the usual travel route of tourists. You can get there by train but traveling by car is probably the easiest and fastest.

Website: There are two excellent websites (both in Japanese) about this fesitval here and here.

The Kemari soccer matsuri was on again today. The festival happens twice a year (on April 29th and on November 3rd). I already went to see it last autumn, but i didn’t get the pictures i wanted that time so i decided to go once more. Interestingly the people playing Kemari seem to have improved their game a bit. This time it was actually a bit more fun to watch then last time. It also helped that the weather was awesome (nice warm sun, but not too hot) and that it wasn’t as crowded as last time. This allowed me to move around a bit.

The event is held at the Tanzan Jinja which also happens to be one of the nicer shrines here in japan

Website: The Tanzan Shrine is hosting this event and information about the “festival” (can you really call an 1-hour event a festival?!) is there in Japanese.

Transport: Kintetsu Line to Sakurai Sta. From there, about 30 min. by bus for Tanzan Jinja, and then get off at the last stop … or come by car – there is plenty of parking and it’s not really that popular of an event to draw a huge crowd.

Protein Water is another one of those drinks that is based on cultured milk and lactobacilli. There wasn’t really anything outstanding to this drink .. it has a solid good taste like all the other milk-drinks (like Fanta White and Calpis) which  i really digg .. but nothing that really makes it stand out anymore than the others.

The Mieku matsuri is a very small festival. But it’s just down the road from my place so decided to go and have a peek. The festival is already 800 years old and is in remembrance of Kobo Daishi, the spiritual leader and founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism. There wasn’t really much interesting going on at the festival. It’s mostly a lot of ceremonial things, like moving nicely presented food around and doing a lot of recitations and mantras. So after an hour or so i decided to leave and get some other errands done.

Transport: Take the Nankai Koya Line to Kawachinagano Station (about half an hour by express from Osaka) and then take the Komyoike line bus in direction of the Cycle Sports Center.

Website: The website of the Amanosan Kongo-Ji temple has more info about the festival (all in Japanese).

The Hikiyama matsuri in Nagahama happens each year from 13th to 16th of April. The highlight of the festival is on the 15th of April when young boys perform Kabuki plays all day long. Back in 1629 women got banned from performing Kabuki and all roles (even female ones) had to be performed by men. During the Hikiyama festival all of the Kabuki will be performed by young boys and i was actually quite impressed by their performances. The quality of the plays was just amazing and i am sure they must have spent months of intense training to take it to this level. This is no ordinary school play of 5-10 year olds – it’s professional level theater play and it was a pleasure to watch (even though i didn’t understood much).

The big hikiyama floats looked absolute wonderful. They are quite large and acted both as transport as well as stage for the young performers. During the morning hours of the 15th all of the floats will be located at the Hachiman-gu shrine .. it does get quite crowded but usually the masses move between performances so with a bit of patience i managed to make my way past the crowd and get close enough to take a couple of snapshots.

Transport : JR Hokuriku Honsen Line to Nagahama Station, from there you can walk on foot to all the locations.

Website: Nagahama Tourism website has a lot of info on their website (all in Japanese).

The Hachiman Matsuri happens a month after the Sagicho matsuri in the same shrine. This is the older of the two festivals (held since the year 275 AD) and the one that inspired warlord Oda Nobunaga to start the now more famous and well known Sagicho matsuri. The hachiman festival is divided into two days, on 14th of April is the torch festival (Taimatsu Matsuri), and then the day after on the 15th is the Drum festival (Taiko matsuri).

The festival was absolute spectacular (or maybe it’s just me – i just love those fire festivals!). The heat is absolutely incredible when those big torches are being burned and sparks and glowing embers are raining down on you. On of those sparks landed on my camera bag and set it on fire, luckily a guy standing behind me noticed it early and we got it quickly under control.

Transport: Close to Obatacho-Shiryokan-mae bus stop on the Chomyo-ji bus route from Omihachiman Station. Omihachiman Station is on the JR Biwako Line from Kyoto Station.

Website:  The Omihachiman city website has some excellent information about this festival.

What an awesome name for a drink! But also a bit misleading .. the drink hasn’t really much to do with yogurt and all the sugar in it is probably make you more fat rather than strong .. but as long as it tastes nice i am not one to complain! I wouldn’t mind having another one of those to drink, but looks like the drink has already been taken of the shelves from my local “conbini” (Japanese convenience store).