Walking the narrow streets of small town Akaoka at night with nothing illuminating the way but candlelight and paper lanterns strung up above, one instantly notices this is not your typical festival. Feeling a little more like Halloween, Ekin Festival […]
The landlocked Chinese province of Yunnan is situated in the country's southwest, and is known for its spectacular natural landscapes (think snow-capped mountains and terraced rice fields), UNESCO World Heritage Sites like the Old Town of Lijiang, and being regarded […]
The Uchiwa Matsuri, possibly the largest of Saitama's summer festivals, is held in Kumagaya, just north of Tokyo in Saitama Prefecture. With a history dating back to 1750, the three-day festival in July attracts over 750,000 revelers and is one […]
Although a small countryside town, Tsuwano has festivals with a few hundred years of history. The most important of them is the Heron Dance in July. Performing on the same date every year, it draws a big crowd of spectators. […]
Taking place in the picturesque Kiso township of Nagano Prefecture, the Mikoshi Matsuri is an annual event involving approximately 100 wooden mikoshi (portable, shoulder-borne shrines). The mikoshi, weighing up to 375 kilograms, are carried and flipped (!) end over end […]
The Himeji Yukata Festival is the oldest festival of its type in Japan, dating back more than 260 years. Yukata are the light and often very bright kimonos worn in Japan during the summer months. While yukata are a part […]
Tobata is a ward of the city of Kitakyushu in Fukuoka prefecture and this festival dates back over 200 years to when Tobata was a village. The Yamagasa are tall floats that are carried around. At night the floats are […]
The Kihoku Lantern Festival takes place in the port town of Nagashima in Kihoku, Mie Prefecture. Each year a large, elaborate cloth lantern is set afloat on the harbor in the afternoon. After nightfall, there is a spectacular fireworks display […]
The historic town of Hita in Oita prefecture is the venue for the Hita Gion Matsuri in late July. Gion festivals are held throughout Japan in July, but each brings a touch of local flavor with lavishly decorated floats and […]
Bright and cheerful sunflowers are a quintessential sign of summer in Japan, and the annual Akeno Sunflower Festival boasts fields upon fields of them to enjoy. The event began in 1993, and at the venue, you'll also find a sunflower […]
Every steaming hot summer evening for over 500 years, the people of Tsushima in Aichi Prefecture go down to the Tenno river. It’s not that the riverside is cooler on the evening of the fourth Saturday of July, but that’s […]
It's summertime and Ikebukuro is gripped by Hawaiian fever. The annual Hula Festival is hard to miss as the colors and sounds of the Pacific sweep the northwestern part of Tokyo. Up to 3,900 dancers show off their skills on […]