On May 5, 2006, after hearing about an interesting "Japanese festival" from a friend at the dormitory, I went to check out the Kurayami Matsuri (Festival) near Fuchu (府中) at the Ōkunitama Shrine (大國魂神社).
Note: I have no idea what this festival was about. Other than the fact that there were real Taiko drums and a "Japan atmosphere" to it.
The first thing I saw when I entered the festival grounds in the shrine were food stands. There were a lot of food stands there, typical of any Japanese festival.
Genmai pan, a stall that sells brown rice bread.
Takoyaki (deep fried wheat balls filled with octopus, covered in sweet sauce), stall.
Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki (Japanese-style pancake).
The mini Osaka-style okonomiyaki known as "Osaka-yaki".
Shaved ice stand.
Hokkaido sourced "butter potato".
Iwate Prefecture's "Chicken Steak".
Doraemon castella (Japanese-style sponge cake).
Grilled squid.
In addition there were "healthy" things on sale as well, such as pineapple sticks.
Chocolate covered bananas.
There were a lot of festival-style game stands there as well.
In this stand, you could supposedly win high value goods like PSPs or PlayStation 2 consoles.
Here you could fish out something...
Stands where you could fish goldfish were also popular.
You could also fish for turtles.
Shooting for prizes.
The scariest stand that I have ever seen! (Who doesn't want to buy fans with giant pictures of girly looking men on them?)
Haunted house.
A lot of kids were carrying these giant plastic bottles for some reason.
Fresh flowers were also on sale.
After walking for a bit, a parade started featuring a giant drum.
As the parade reached the shrine, there was an impressive display of drum playing.
The actual shrine was pretty crowded.
Lastly, there was a float of kids banging at the drums.
5 comments:
The festival looks really fun, something like Playland here, but I'd actually go to this one.
As for the pictures with the idols on, I'm sure lots of fangirls would love to buy that stuff.
Wow, the festival is so cool, sadly, that's something we'll never have in Vancouver.
I really want to have one of those "bottle" backpacks, very unique!
DaYvid
hey!! wow it seems like you're having a great time!! the parade looks awesome!! man i'd really like to have one of those bottle backpacks and wear it around here, and see what kind of reactions i would get from people. hahaha...j/k...anyways, sorry i never commented before. Hope you're doing well!! take care!
it seems to me that u had a fun in that festival ^_^
btw i like Japan so i am interesting in ur trip to Japan
Emirati_Girl
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