Sanja Matsuri Festival

Saturday went nothing like planned. 

I got on the train headed towards Yokohama; a large city on the outskirts of Tokyo, that has a pretty cool  looking district with museums, parks, ect. I was just going to wonder around, and see what I could find.

On the way there, I ran into a young guy from Portland, Oregon. As we're the only two people on the train car that can reasonably converse with each other, we get talking. He's trying to make his way to this festival in Asakusa, to meet a friend - and that sounds even more interesting then what I have planned (I didn't know it was going on, but Google confirmed it) - so I decided to tag along.

Right choice. The Sanja Matsuri ("Three Shrine Festival") is one of the three major Shinto festivals each year, and (according to Wikipedia) - "...the wildest and largest".

 This is a street.

Far as I can tell, it's all about these people in green outfits (with little to no pants), carrying around shrines and chanting. This isn't incredibly descriptive, so I took a video! Shrine comes in at about a minute in.

Still shot of the shrine

The shrines seemed to aim to pass through the gates. 

It wasn't all just pants-less revelry on the streets. There was also lots of activity going on around the major shrine in town (I say major, because there are shrines and temples every time you turn around). This one was amazingly green - and like everything else in Japan, super well kept and clean. 

I ate some different street foods here, including some oddly candied strawberry on a stick. Oh, and went into some mini-amusement park. It had one of the towers that shot you straight up, that looked to give a great view of the town. It did; but I was prohibited from bringing my phone along with me to capture it. Still was worth it.

When everything was said and done, I was exhausted... and then I had to ride the trains. Everything going out of the festival was packed, so it was standing room only on the subway and train. Then I had to walk back to the hotel, which was probably another two miles. Being out so late, I did get a great view of what the night is like in Yokosuka, on a Saturday.

I've not made it out to Yokohama, as originally intended. But that will persist, and this was a fleeting chance. I'm just happy that when presented with the chance to go the extra (couple dozen) miles, that I took it.

All the pictures - including some unmentioned baseball hijinks.