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 ...
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 ...
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, ...
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 ...
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 ...
