This Weekend – Fukagawa Hachiman Matsuri

This Saturday sees one of Tokyo’s three Grand Festivals, the Fukagawa Hachiman Matsuri, most famous for being a mizukakematsuri, a water throwing festival. This year looks like it will be massive with over 300 000 people attending. It is one of my favorite festivals a lot of fun to watch or participate in. I took these photos last year during one of the minor days. Each year 54 omikoshi representing the different neighborhoods participate and the parade is quite fun to watch, especially when the firefighters and locals open up with hoses, buckets and bottles of water! If you are a fan of festivals and in Tokyo this weekend, don’t miss this!

Water Festival – Fukagawa Hachiman Matsuri

It is Monday afternoon here in Tokyo and people are getting ready for the big typhoon heading towards the city. The rains have started and as I am writing this the typhoon has made landfall in Kouchi Prefecture on Shikoku Island.

All this weather is keeping me holed up at home and has me thinking of water, so here are some photos from one of my favorite major festivals of the city, the Fukagawa Hachiman Matsuri in Tokyo’s Monzennakacho district. During this festival which attracts thousands locals and tourists local shops and even fire fighting teams prepare water, buckets and hoses to do their best to soak the revelers in water.

Fukagawa Hachiman Water Festival

The annual festival at the Tomioka Hachimangu is a grand event on normal years, but once every third year the festival goes into hyper mode and grows much larger than usual. The 2014 Fukagawa Hachiman Festival was one of these special years and the rituals and celebrations were massive. I could only visit one of the evenings and one of the days but it must have been great. The festival is also known as the water splashing festival and the streets of the processions are lined with shopkeepers and even local fire departments at the ready to soak the participants!

Tomioka Hachimangu – Gamelan

At the Tomioka Hachimangu a couple of weeks ago I saw this performance of Indonesian gamelan music performed by a mixed troupe of dancers and musicians at the shrine itself. I had never seen it before and the fascinating music and movements were fantastic. Sometimes even traditional Japanese festivals show you things from completely different cultures. The performance was a huge hit with the audience. I overheard lots of people comparing it to the performances they had seen when visiting the island of Bali which in the last few years has become a very popular travel destination for Japanese tourists.