Page 71 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Japan

APRIL
△ Sakura Season (throughout). Blooms ornament
MARCH temples and parks nationwide, and cherry blossom
is celebrated in classical poetry and literature.
△ Hina Matsuri (Mar 3). Families with young Kanamara Matsuri (1st Sun). At Kanayama Shrine
daughters set up displays of elaborately dressed in Kawasaki, a 6-ft- (2-m-) tall phallus is paraded
dolls, representing the imperial court in the through the streets to offer prayers for conception,
Heian period. safe childbirth, and marital happiness.
Sumo Spring Basho (mid-Mar). Osaka hosts its Buddha’s Birthday (Apr 8). All over Japan, believers
annual tournament, which builds in intensity as the bathe small statues of the Buddha and decorate
best wrestlers compete later in the competition. them with flowers to signify his birth.

AUGUST
JULY △ Awa-Odori (Aug 12–15). The city of Tokushima
sings and dances for four days and nights to com-
Gion Matsuri (throughout). Kyoto’s largest memorate the building of the castle here in 1587.
festival features beautiful traditional costumes. Obon (Aug 13–16). Buddhists across the country
△ Tanabata Matsuri (Jul 7). An ancient visit their family tombs for the festival of the dead,
festival celebrated by writing wishes on in which riotous dances are performed and
paper and hanging them from trees. lanterns are lit to guide the deceased.
Fuji Rock Festival (last weekend in Jul). Daimonji Bonfire (Aug 16). Five large bonfires are lit
Japan’s largest outdoor music event. on the hills around Kyoto to mark the end of Obon.

DECEMBER
NOVEMBER
Winter Illuminations (throughout). Light
△ Daimyo Gyoretsu (Nov 3). Hakone hosts the installations ornament cities across the
re-enactment of a feudal lord’s procession along country, from Sapporo to Tokyo.
the old Tokaido road between Edo and Kyoto. △ Okera Mairi Ceremony (Dec 31). Head to
Kyokusui-no-En (Nov 3). At Kyoto’s Jonan-gu the Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto to witness locals
Shrine, poets dressed as Heian nobles must lighting lengths of bamboo rope with the
compose a 31-syllable poem, while drinking sacred flame, so that they can ignite candles
a glass of sake. on their household altars.
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