Summer River in Sawanoi – Western Tokyo

It is hard to believe but the majority of Tokyo consists of unpopulated mountains and forests. The reason for this is the extreme ruggedness of Japanese terrain and vegetation – there is just no realistic way of accessing most of the wild Japanese mountains with anything less than a helicopter, the stamina of a mountain goat or at least a well sharpened machete. The only way that I have found of really accessing nature is to follow the rivers and Western Tokyo is full of them. One of my favorite spots to avoid the summer heat in the concrete is to take the train out to Sawanoi and explore the local rivers. There are all kinds of roads and paths near the station so no matter if you want the full mountain ranger experience or just want to take granny out for a day in the greens, you will find this a good spot to start with!

Here are some of photos I took when I visited last summer, getting my feet wet in Tama River!

Ometaisai Dashi at Night

Dashi, the huge mobile festival platforms pulled around the neighborhood at matsuri time is great fun both to watch and to photograph. Here is the main dashi of the grand Ometaisai that took place last month the Western Tokyo city of Ome.

Ometaisai Snapshots

Some more snapshots from last months grand Ometaisai in the western part of Tokyo, Ome City (青梅市). The festival takes place along and near the old Omekaido, one of the great “highways” of old Japan and the main artery of all trade, commerce, travel and transport for hundreds of years. Along the way of the festival area there are several hayashi stations, where performers in traditional costumes entertain the passing dashi, great mobile stages. Each hayashi is managed by a different neighborhood and it is traditional to entertain guests manning the dashi from other neighborhoods with sake, served fresh from large barrels. The sake used in this town is from the local brewery and is served in square wooden containers with a touch of salt added. It must be a special kind of man to be able to handle the dashi from early morning and still stop for a drink of straight liquor at every stop, over and over again! I do not think I could do it myself. The hayashi teams have members of all ages, from kids to the elderly, and are always great fun to watch.

Ometaisai – Candy Rain

One of the many ways to lure the kids to attend the local festivals thrown by towns, neighborhoods and shrines around Japan is to offer plenty of loot – preferably candy and snacks! In the grand Ometaisai, the big festival that took place a few weeks ago in Tokyo’s western Ome City, I saw this dashi (mobile stage) and hayashi crew (traditional festival music troupe) organize a little candy rain! The kids had a blast trying to catch the candy and this being Japan and candy being very very cheap, the local neighborhood had arranged for mind blowing amounts of candy to be thrown out, ensuing that everyone would get at least something. I guess most, if not all, dashi of the festival do this because some kids had already brought half full bags of snacks! It was great fun watching the action and the hayashi dancer doing the actual throwing employed all tricks of the trade, underhand throws and all kinds of trick throws.