Festivals Year Round Home

Cherry Blossom Festival One of the most colorful festivals in Okinawa has taken place every January in Nago since Thousands of trees bloom each year creating oceans of beautiful pink blossoms. A winding path of over 700 stone steps leads you up to the Nago Castle site. The path is lined with beautiful stone lanterns. About half way up the path you will find a Torii Gate and a Shinto Shrine providing a lovely place to rest take pictures or videotape the scenery.

Snow Festival For seven days in February, statues and sculptures turn Sapporo into a winter dreamland of crystal-like ice and white snow.The Festival is one of the biggest and most well known of Hokkaido's winter events.The Snow Festival is considered to be a festival of international-caliber. February 5th – 11th

Onbashira Festival The climax of the festival consists of the young men who ride the logs as they slide down a steep slope and put their lives in danger and later as they are raised as pillars to form a shrine, a total of 16 trunks are used during the festival Begins every 6 years from April till May

Sanja Matsuri The biggest of Tokyo's Three Grand Festivals, Asakusa Shrine's Sanja festival is a glorious three- day weekend of traditional portable shrines going through the streets of Asakusa, with plenty of drinking, dancing, music and other lively types of fun. The huge parade draws over two million people into the streets. Starts every 3 rd Friday of May for 3 days

Kyoto Gion Festival There are many events held during this festival, but the highlights are Yoi-yama on the 16th and Yamahoko-junko on the 17th. At Yoi-yama, people open the doors of their houses to show their old folding screens. Yamahoko-junko is the parade of colorful floats through downtown Kyoto. The floats are pulled through the streets by teams of men dressed in traditional costumes. Festival begins July 1st and lasts until July 31st

Aomori Nebuta Fire Festival One of the most famous festivals in Japan. Over 20 nebuta floats are pulled by people in the streets of Aomori-city. Also, Aomori citizens and audiences participate in the festival as dancers called haneto. It's held from Aug. 2 to Aug. 7 every year

Awaodori A traditional Japanese dance, and every August groups of elaborately dressed men, women and children gather in the streets to enjoy the sounds of pounding drums, bamboo flutes and different types of traditional Japanese instruments.

Chichibu Festival (Night Festival) Festive floats, each weighing more than 10 tons and decorated with rows of lanterns, are carried through town to the Chichibu Shrine. Fireworks are set off turning night into day around the whole town. On December 3, the festival culminates when the floats are noisily pulled up a steep slope called Dango-zaka. Home