Nagoya Festival

This last weekend happened to not only be a long one (Monday was a national holiday) but also hosted Nagoya's Annual City Festival, an opportunity to put up dozens of food stalls, erect the occasional stage and to put on quite a show through a city-wide parade. Being an annual event (although not very famous as I was told by my Japanese friends) and never having been to a Japanese festival before I was keen to attend and see what sort of things might be on offer.

Arriving at the opening, I was surprised that even though Nagoya was a big and bustling city there weren't crowds and crowds of people. The festival was a two-day 8-hours/day affair, so perhaps more people attended the second day, but I had imagined it would be a lot busier. Nevertheless, it was certainly more bustly and a noticable increase in police and "traffic-light keepers" when I arrived at the city centre and found the festival spread out around the base of the TV Tower.

Browsing around the stalls, and being close enough to lunchtime, I picked up some takoyaki (balls of cooked batter with octopus and other fillings) and perched myself in the greener bit of the Sakae to eat. Compared to the takoyaki I'd eaten in the UK, these were certainly more undercooked and gooey, but I'm not dead yet so it must have been ok.

There were two main stages - one that hosted various entertainers and band acts, and the other that was similar but had a slightly more traditional bend, hosting also traditional costumes and martial art demonstrations. These were all fun to watch, though the large majority of the language-based entertainment passed me by.

Next of course was the parade, the highlight of the festival. For this the streets were closed off, and the rush of small children and grandmas was a mini stampede to try and get a good position in the crowd. Being tall is a definite plus in these situations, however a definite disadvantage is that most of my pictures feature someone's hair.

With all of these pictures and descriptions, if I have missed something or have made a mistake and you know better, please let me know ;) The commentary was from a far away loudspeaker and was vaguely incomprehensible.

First up was Mr Toyota himself, presumably the sponsor, with either daughters, escorts or competition winners in the boot.


Plenty of marching bands and dancers in between various bits, playing various bits and bobs of music to try and keep the crowd happy. Interestingly a few were approached by a Festival Organiser-looking person and told presumably to take a hike, cutting short whatever symphony they had going and shooing them away for the next lot.

It wouldn't be a festival without floats, and there were plenty to choose from here, many holding celebrities such as the Koala here (mascot of the local baseball team) or some giant duck of sorts (???).

Towards the end there were plenty of medieval reenactment teams, some going as far as setting fire to the street and charging at each other with sharp things. Nothing like traditional slaughter in the name of a Festival.

At the end, before heading home, there was enough time to watch the Tossing of the Heavy Thing, this year's entry being big, shoulder-mounted and golden, and this year's team is Team Blue.

More soon!

PS. If anyone anywhere could tell me the significance or indeed history of these two, it would be much appreciated. The first is a bird-like creature who proceeded to touch all the kids in the audience with its feather fan thing, while the other seems like a sacred dog (of Nagoya?). Any and all suggestions welcome.

PPS. There was another result of the festival ^_^ One has already popped its clogs, but the others are living happily on in a murky plastic 100 yen breadbin.