Princess Orihime, the daughter of the sky king, wove beautiful clothes by the banks of a heavenly river we know as the Milky Way. She enjoyed making clothes, but she was lonely and she worked so tirelessly that she was worried she wouldn’t ever fall in love. Concerned for Orihime, the sky king arranged for her to meet a boy named Hikoboshi who lived across the Milky Way. The two instantly fell in love and were soon married. However, the sky king found that Orihime no longer had time to weave clothes for him anymore and Hikoboshi let his cows wander aimlessly all over the sky. In anger, the sky king banished Hikoboshi back to the other side of the Milky Way and forbade them to meet. Orihime grew despondent and begged her father to let them see each other again. He was still angry, but he couldn’t deny his daughter this wish, so he allowed them to meet for just one day per year on the 7^th day of the 7^th month.

Princess Orihime and Hikoboshi are represented by the stars Vega and Altair respectively, and their paths meet across the Milky Way once a year. To celebrate this meeting people celebrate Tanabata, which means “Evening of the seventh”, by making huge, colourful, washi paper decorations and hanging them from bamboo poles in the street.

Day 5-6 of the Tohoku road trip:

The absolute highlight of the trip was our 2 days in Aomori attending the Nebuta matsuri. You may have seen photos of this festival before. It’s the one with the huge, illuminated floats depicting scary Japanese gods and mythical creatures that are spun around through the streets!

The locals spend a whole year creating these enormous floats by hand designing wire and bamboo frames and covering them with fragile, painted washi paper. To finish it off, hundreds of lights are woven under the inside of the paper so that the floats are illuminated in colour making them breathtaking to behold at night. Then combine these with the noise and colour of thousands of dancers, taiko drummers, flutists, and over a million onlookers in the crowd, all chanting “Rassera rassera!”

Not only is this festival visually impressive, it’s also incredible fun to participate in! The dancers in the festival wear the traditional haneto dancing costume, which is like a yukata but much shorter, making it easier to jump around and dance in, and it also has a big sash tied around the shoulders and the back, probably to make the sleeves shorter, but likely for no reason other than it looks really cool! The best part of the costume though is the 50 or so bells that are pinned to each dancer because as the parade moves around the town, the bells are taken off and thrown or given to spectators on the street, young or old, everyone enjoys catching a bell!

The first night we dressed in our regular yukata and sat on the edge of the street drinking and eating festival food when a few of the dancers came over to us yelling “Rassera rassera” (which doesn’t mean anything, it’s just something you yell at this festival), taught us the dance (which involved a huge amount of hopping, the higher the better!) and then gave us a bell each! We quickly learned that the more we danced and shouted rassera, the more bells we accumulated. We even made friends with the people next to us on the street, even though their small boys kept stealing our bells.

Selflessly giving a little boy one of her bells

The second day we bought the Nebuta costumes and took part in the parade. We pinned all the bells we’d collected the previous day on our yukata and primed our legs for 2 hours of non-stop hopping! The most enjoyable part of the whole thing was choosing who to give our bells to during the parade. The children at the front had bags full of bells they’d collected, so I enjoyed throwing them to people at the back of the crowd that made eye contact with me. I only nailed 2 people in the head accidentally, most of my bells made it to their target! Tom’s on the other hand favoured delivering bells to the old grandmas and seeing the joy spread over their faces.

Even the dog was wearing the traditional haneto costume!

This festival was incredible to observe as well as participate in and has been my favourite event during my time in Japan. I highly recommend you make your way up north to Aomori if you’re planning a trip to Japan in August.

On the flutists count, 200 bamboo poles carrying 46 candle lit lanterns each are hoisted up into the air and then precariously balanced there on just the hip, shoulder, palm, or forehead of a single man! The first man starts with a short pole, then a few minutes later a new man rotates in and an extension is added to the pole. This continues until the poles are 12m high and weigh 50kg, all while the taiko drums beat, the flutists play, and the onlookers cheer “Dokkoisho dokkoisho!” as the men stoically try to outdo each other!

On the hip

On the shoulder

On the forehead!

                             

Tom lifting one of the poles himself. The men were amazed when he could actually do it!

The biggest smile I've ever seen!

And one of the cutest! 

These boys had mini poles that they would practice lifting during the festival.
The forehead method was their favourite, but as a result the pole didn't spend much time in the air!

If you've ever heard the drum of a taiko drum, you know that it reverberates through your chest. Now imagine 10,000 of them beating in unison. That's the Sansa Odori! Over 10,000 drummers, flutists and dancers dance their way through the streets of Morioka as they play and yell "Sakkora choiwa yasse", meaning "bring in good luck" in very old Japanese. What's most impressive about it is that the dance is pretty complicated, yet the drummers perform it perfectly while also carrying their 7kg drums around their necks! The parade lasts for about 2 hours, and everyone looked like they were having the best time, even right up until the end!

Legend has it that the festival began when a wicked demon was terrorising the town of Morioka. The townspeople prayed for their safety and a god called Mitsuishi answered them. He shackled the demon to one of the large rocks in the shrine and made him swear to never commit an evil deed again. As part of his promise to the god, the demon stamped his hand into the rock and disappeared, leaving the town in peace. The townspeople rejoiced and began singing and dancing around the rock, and thus the Sansa Odori was born. They even named the prefecture "Iwate", meaning "rock hand", which they say you can still see at Mitsuishi shrine after a rain fall. But you’ll have to go and see for yourself!

Zao Fox Village

The north is pretty far from Gifu, so the first day involved a few stops, the first being at the Zao Fox Village. In Japanese folklore, kitsune are intelligent and magical animals that have the ability to shape shift into humans. Some stories depict them as faithful friends and guardians to humans, but mostly they were said to be tricksters. To avoid being tricked by a cunning and mischievous kitsune, people answer the phone with “Moshi moshi” because supposedly it’s really difficult for foxes to say, so if the person on the other end doesn’t say moshi moshi back, then you know they’re a sneaky fox and aren’t to be trusted!

All the foxes we saw were adorable though, I even played a game with a young one as we chased each other around the enclosure! So now please enjoy these cute pictures of Japanese red foxes!

The soft at heart's who needled a snuggle!

Yamadera

Next up was Yamadera, a thousand year old temple built into the top of a mountain in Yamagata prefecture. You have to climb exactly 1000 stairs through a forest of giant cedar trees, hydrangea bushes, and moss covered lanterns to reach the top. Once you do you are awarded with a beautiful view overlooking a town nestled in the valley below. Yamadera is also famous for being the subject of this famous haiku, composed by Matsuo Bashō, which will probably strike a chord with anyone who has ever had the pleasure of experiencing Japan in the summer!

静けさや
岩にしみ入る
蝉の声
Silence, and penetrating into the rocks — the cry of the cicada

Ginzan Onsen Town

After our hike we were in need of a bath, and what better place to have one then in the beautiful Ginzan onsen town.  Ginzan is a quaint little town nestled in the mountains in Yamagata prefecture that consists of only twenty or so wooden buildings that line a river as it threads its way through a narrow valley. In the evening, after hotel guests have eaten and bathed, they dress in yukata and geta, traditional Japanese cotton robes and wooden sandals, and wander around the town lit by the soft glow of lanterns hanging from each door. It was a magical site, only somewhat ruined by our regular clothes and the fact that we were about to go to an izakaya to drink beers and then retire to our cosy little motorhome for the night! One day we might stay at one of these fancy hotels though, maybe…