A couple of World Nomads are back on the road. Nick Pound and myself are on the way to the annual Lonely Planet Conference in San Francisco and we thought we'd go a different route and drop in to Japan on the way through.
It was only a 24 hour stop over and we had all intentions to bullet train into Tokyo, but a funny thing happened on the way to the pub and we were convinced by the friendly towns folk to stick around for the Gion Festival.
Apparently the biggest festival in Narita, it is held along with the
Dainichi-nyorai Festival of Shinsho-ji Temple which is a sight to see in itself.
Starting with the
passage of mikoshi
(portable shrine), ten floats from each area of the city are drawn
around through it for three days. You get to stand on the side and see the most amazing array of traditionally dressed villagers drag large shrines, using 80 foot ropes, down the main street and past the temple.
At the major intersections they stop, pull out their fans and break out into a local song. I tried to find out from some of the locals what they were actually singing, but was waved away as obviously a smelly tourist, bit of a shame, but decided to capture it for all to enjoy on Youtube.
