Sanja Matsuri 2014 – Saturday

Yesterday I visited the massive Sanja Matsuri (三社祭) and enjoyed a full day of festival fun. The weather was good (too good in fact, I look like a well cooked lobster right now) and the sun fierce. There are lots of different things going on all over the festival area that covers dozens of city blocks in all directions from the Sensoji temple area, the heart of the festival. I took these photos of a just very few of the over one hundred omikoshi teams that crisscrosses the streets of Asakusa for the duration of the festival.

The main impression of this year’s festival was the huge number of foreign tourists I saw! Just comparing with last year’s festival the number of foreigners must have increased at least two, maybe even three fold. I heard Chinese, Korean and Thai as often as I heard Japanese on streets, in addition to French, German and plenty of English! It looks like my prediction from earlier was correct: most foreign tourists in Tokyo this weekend must have been at this festival.

Today is the final day of the festival and also the peak, everything will get even more crowded and even more crazy! More photos to come!