Setsubun is the day before the beginning of each season, but historically usually refers to the Spring season because after the winter this was kind of thought as the beginning of a new year and therefore an important day to celebrate and pray for good luck.

It’s usually celebrated all over Japan by throwing beans (mame-beans) at each other and shouting “Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi” (Demons out, Luck in!). The Kasuga Taisha in Nara however celebrates Setsubun a bit different than most others by lighting up 1,000 lanterns and without any throwing of beans and shouting.

 

Transport: From Kintetsu Nara Train Station you can walk or take a bus.

Website: The Kasuga Taisha website has information in Japanese.

There are dozens of hadaka (=naked) festivals each year in Japan and today i was visiting this one in Ogaki, in Gifu prefecture. Each year in the afternoon of February 3rd the people of this town hold this event, but if you want there is nothing stopping you to enter this festival too .. just bring some Fundoshi (loin cloth) and some white socks and you’ll be good to join!

The weather this year was absolute fantastic for this kind of festival. It was freezing cold and snowing (sometimes raining) – which makes the act of defying the cold so much more challenging. Nevermind the buckets of cold water that people were throwing to make sure that everyone got wet and freezing (even us photographers in the first row) … i am just glad that my camera survived without any damage.

 

The concept of Hadaka festivals originated in Okayama (the Saidaiji Eyo Hadaka Matsuri) which every years draws more then 10′000 men participating in the event. That said, this festivals in Ogaki was on a much smaller level but never got boring either. It also draws a lot less people (or maybe that was just because of the weather?!) which is always a good thing if you actually try to move around and get some pictures shot rather then wasting time stuck somewhere in the 3rd row behind a crowd.

Transport: 15 minute walk from Yoro Railroad Tomoe Station. Or, take the Meihan Kintetsu bus from JR Ogaki Station to “Noguchi” bus stop. There is plenty of parking space available on the other side of the river should you intend to come by car.

Website: There is some simple website from the Ogaki Festival Committee (all in Japanese) available, but other than that it’s kind of hard to find lot’s of information about it anywhere.

Burning down a mountain is something i wouldn’t want to miss seeing once. Each year in middle of January (i think usually it’s on the 15th – but this year it was on the 23rd) a spectacle like this can be seen in Nara when they burn the dry grass on the Wakakusa Hill.

Wakakusa Yamayaki starts around 5.30pm with purification rituals and prayers for safety during the event, followed by a fireworks display around 6pm. Shortly after the fireworks the dead winter grass at the base of Wakakusa Hill is ignited. This is done by priests dressed as warriors, using torches lit with the sacred flame from Kasuga Shrine. I didn’t see those priests (was arriving in Nara a bit late and got even more delayed trying to find a parking space) but hopefully i will get another chance next year to make some pictures of them too.

The fires spread quickly and by 6.20-6.30pm the whole hill is engulfed in flames. The best view is from the foot of the hill in Nara Park. The spectacle draws in quite a bit of a crowd but because the mountain can be seen from pretty much anywhere in Nara it shouldn’t be a problem to find a good viewing spot with clear sight – i found a good spot that wasn’t too crowded to set up my tripod at the green outside the Todaiji-temple grounds. The whole thing is over rather quickly – so make sure you get to your place before 6pm or you gonna miss out on it.

 

Transport: Within walking distance of the Nara train station. Parking for car is available but i suggest you come early as a lot of spectators arrive after 5pm and parking spaces fill up quickly.

Website: Nara Tourist information has information about it with a schedule of the event (all in Japanese). If you go back to the startpage of this site you will be able to set the language to English but there isn’t much information available except the date.

Every Sunday closest to January 15th they have an archery contest on the temple grounds next to the Sanjusangen-do building. In the old times archers were shooting on targets 120m away from them, nowadays the distance is shortened a bit to 60m, which is still very very very far away and needs a lot of skills (or should i say “luck” ?) to hit it with those old wooden traditional Japanese style long bows.

There will be over 2,000 archers competing in this contest and everybody will get a chance to shoot at least 2 arrows(I think you will get another round if you hit at least one). The festival mostly celebrates 20 year olds (coming into age) from all over Japan … but at later hours professional archers that are older will also start to compete. The contest begins from 9am in the morning and runs till 4pm in the afternoon. There are a lot of young girls nicely dressed in kimonos (or yukatas) taking part of it. I was watching between 12pm and 2pm and only saw girls shooting … but there were also a lot of young men dressed in formal samurai hakama cloths waiting their turn.

 

Transport: Close to Hakubutsukan Sanjusangendo-mae bus stop by City Bus No. 206 or No. 208 from Kyoto Station. Or, 7 minutes’ walk from Keihan Railways’ Shichijo Station. Parking is very limited, but if you are lucky (like i was) then you will find some on the shrine-grounds.

Website: Japan National Tourism organization has some info about it in English and the official Sanjusangen-do website (in Japanese) should show you the exact date as it is changing every year.

Today was a small kite flying festival on the horse racetrack of Himeji. Flying kites is a popular pastime in Japan (actually most of Asia). It’s one of those cultural things that i just had to go see for myself at least once while i am still here in Japan. This was the 36th time that they had this kite flying festival in Himeji and every year it’s gaining in popularity with kite flying clubs and associations traveling from all over Japan to Himeji. The festival is held in early January (the exact date changes from year to year).

 

Transport: 15 minutes from JR/San’yo Himeji Station by Shinki Bus to Keibajo-mae

Website: Himeji Tourist Information website has some info about this in Japanese. I couldn’t find any good English website for this event as it’s only a small festival and not very much advertised.

I just got to see my first matsuri in 2010. The “Toka Ebisu” festival is a big event for business owners as they go visit the shrines and pray for good luck and fortunes for their business. Ebisu (or familiarly called “Ebessan” in Kansai diallect) is the patron deity of business and fishery. Normal people also like to go and pray for happiness and success in the new year.

The festival is popular in the whole Kansai area where there are many shrines dedicated to Ebisu. The Imamiya Ebisu Shrine in the city center of Osaka is particularly popular and is drawing in huge number of visitors coming to visit the place and enjoy the hunderds of food-stalls located around the vicinity.  This is a grand event which has continued ever since the Edo Period (17th-19th Century) when Osaka used to thrive as a commercial town. January 10th is the main festival day, and the 9th is called the Eve of Ebisu, while the 11th is known as the “Last Helping of Luck.” The famous Ebisu Bridge over the Dotonbori River was originally built for worshippers visiting this shrine.

The ritual of this festival is to come to the shrine and replace the old bamboo-twig from the year ago. Lucky charms, dolls and other blessed ornaments can be bought at the shrine to decorate the twigs. The twig will then be hanged somewhere on the wall in the office.

 

Transport: Near Imamiya Ebisu Station on the Nankai Koya Line. Or 5 minutes’ walk from Daikoku-cho Station on the Midosuji subway or from Ebisu-machi Station on the Sakaisuji subway.

Website: As always, JNTO has some information about it in English and the Imamiya Ebisu shrine website (in Japanese) has all the details of it (Shedule, Streetmap, etc).

I haven’t visited any festivals recently (matsuri season is over!) so i was thrilled to find out about this Yassai Hossai fire walking festival. It’s held each year on the 14th of December in Sakai and within easy reach of my location.

The festival started with a legend of fishermen warming up an image of their deity (a god for good fishing named Ebisu) which had drifted ashore near Iwatsuta Shrine, by burning 108 bundles of firewood. The Japanese “Yassai Hossai” originates from the words “108 logs”.

The festival is a bit on the small side and things started a bit unorthodox with the local school band playing YMCA and the local elder ladies club dancing to some loudspeaker music. But around 8pm things started to look up. After a short theater performance (the Ebisu story) they big bonfire was lit … and shortly after (they fire didn’t take too long to burn down!)  the fire walking began … which looked absolutely amazing!

 

I am planing to go again next year and hopefully that time i will score a position in the first row. This time i was locked in at the 3rd row and had to take pictures by holding my camera over my head … the end result was a lot of blurry shots of feet and wrongly framed objects. Thankfully i still got some usable shots.

Transport: Take the train to Ishizu (or Ishizugawa) both trainstations are within 5 minute walking distance of this shrine. Parking space is very limited so leave your car at home.

Website: The Osaka tourism website has something about it – but it’s a small festival so there isn’t much info available on the net.

This Saturday we had some doggy-friends from Yokohama (close to Tokyo) coming down to Osaka for a dog show .. and staying for a night at our house. At the beginning it was only one visitor planed to stay, but somehow we ended up with 4 whippet owners coming over with their whippets. Our “smallish” living room soon turned into full chaos as 7 (or was it 8!?) whippets started to play around.

Two of them decided to mark our living room with their pee .. but luckily we planed ahead and a new carpet was already ordered last week.  Our old one was already showing some abuse from our momo-chan from last year and we wanted to replace that carpet already for a while but decided to hold out till after that whippet-visit (which was good idea!).

That was a fun evening!

 

It’s this time of the year again when many good pool players come over to Japan to play in the All Japan Open in Amagasaki. Defending Champion from last year, Mika Immomen, also came again and the friendly owners of g-Forest invited him over to their pool hall for some challenge matches.

Sae-chan took me with her to go pick up Mika at his hotel in Amagasaki and she was struggling a bit to find her way ( driving onto the motorway in the wrong direction ) so we ran a bit late. After picking him up we went back to g-Forest pool hall and had Kushikatsu (fried things on skewers) for dinner at some nice posh private dinning place before starting to play pool.

As expected i (and most others) were not really much of a challenge for Mika – he was on fire. He had to miss the 9 ball intentionally like 2 times in a row before i could make the shoot to at least get a pity-point on the scoreboard and avoid a complete disaster.

 

I am planning to head over to the venue and watch some games this Saturday. With a bit of luck i might get to see Mika qualifying for the final round (happens on Sunday). And on the way back i probably could get myself one of those nice big pizzas that i saw last weekend at Costco !

Sunday was a good day – Sunny and warm (probably one of the last warm weekends before winter comes) .. and i guess it was an especially good day for me because we went to a sweets paradise! Itsukis mother and sister joined us for a ride to go shopping at Costco. Costco is an American based wholesale retailer and as it happens they also have a couple of stores here in Japan and one of them is located in Amagasaki between Osaka and Kobe which isn’t too far away from us (about 30km).

They do sell some imported goods that are hard to get here in Japan. Mostly American things, but i was surprised to also find some real Swiss honey and Lindt chocolate. The sweets i bought should hopefully last me through the cold wintertime.

I also was happy to find some of my favorite Hokey Pokey ice creme from New Zealand there! With a good supply of this ice creme the next summer will be easy to survive!

I was surprised to find that Costco pretty much used the same shopping model like in the states. This includes a membership fee (4,200 JPY for a year) and even some bag-checks at the exit to make sure nobody is stealing anything … which i found a bit over the top, considering the low rate of criminality here in Japan. But anyway, i am looking forward to my next visit there! – Next time i am going to buy me one of those American sized pizzas they sell over there at normal prices. Costco food court sells them for 1,500 JPY (for a 45cm pizza) … while the Japanese branches of Pizzahut or Domino Pizza charge up to about 4,000 JPY (thats about 40 USD!) for a normal sized 31cm Pizza.