May 20, 2006
Portable Shrine Festival in Asakusa
The Sanja-Matsuri, the Portable Shrine Festival, was today at Asakusa. There are 3 main festivals in Tokyo. This is one of the big ones. I had read about it last week and had thought it was last week. Luckily, I had gone to Asakusa to pick up a few more hair ornaments today and picked up on the festival vibe. Wow. I wish I were taller so that I could have seen more. Tons of people gathered around the main shrine and waited for the men carrying the portable shrines to parade around. People were cheering and in a good mood. The sun was shining and temperature was warm.
I only stayed around for this one shrine, then walked around and saw the other portable shrines and their carriers waiting their turn. Yeah, and if you look closely at the picture below, you'll notice that some, not all, of the men are wearing like a towel diaper thing; it's called a fundoshi. It was hot... so, I guess the weather called for it. Also, I want to make a note that it's not a male only thing... I saw plenty of women.
Before Asakusa, I stopped at Ginza because I wanted to pick up some honey cake... well, it's not officially called honey cake, I'm not sure what it's called but it's of the Castello brand. You can find it in the Mitsukoshi food court. Here are a couple of pictures of the sunny Ginza area.
This is my last weekend here in Tokyo. Tomorrow, I'm going to the Grand Sumo Tournament, where a winner will be decided. The tournament started last week. One of my coworkers was able to find tickets from an online auction. Note: "sumo" is pronounced, "su-MO", where the accent is placed on the "MO" and the first syllable "su" is rather quiet.
On Wednesday night, we're going to a taiko show Amaterasu. Can't wait!
I leave this Thursday afternoon and will arrive in Austin on Thursday afternoon!
Lily