Page 72 - (DK Eyewitness) Top 10 Travel Guide - Tokyo

70 ❯❯ The Top 10 of Everything

Festivals and Events

serious business, with very strict
entrance rules and requirements.
The run begins at the Tokyo
Metropolitan Government Building.
Horseback Archery
5
MAP S2 • Sumida Park,
Taito-ku • Mid-Apr
Yabusame, or horseback archery, was
integral to the samurai arts of war.
During this event, men in samurai
Festivities on New Year’s Day gear charge their mounts through
Sumida Park, aiming to strike three
New Year’s Day
1 targets in rapid succession.
Jan 1–4
Design Festa
Millions of Japanese welcome the 6
New Year with visits to Shinto May/Nov
shrines and Buddhist temples This biannual event, Asia’s largest
throughout Tokyo. The most popular art festival, features 7,000 Japanese
venues are Meiji Shrine (see pp30–31) as well as international artists,
and Senso-ji temple (see pp14–15), musicians, and perform ers from
where bells are rung to celebrate every conceivable genre. Drawing
the New Year. over 50,000 visitors, Design Festa
also presents fashion shows, cosplay
Coming-of-Age Day
2 exhibitionists, and live bands. The
MAP B5 • 1-1 Kamizonocho,
2-day extravaganza of creativity is
Yoyogi, Shibuya-ku • 3379-5511 held at Tokyo Big Sight (see p56).
• 2nd Mon in Jan
The age of consent in Japan is 20,
which is a milestone celebrated
in Tokyo by ceremonies at major
shrines. Meiji Shrine (see pp30–31),
where an archery display is held
to mark the event, is one of the
most popular venues.
Water Purification Rites
3
MAP F3 • Kanda Myojin Shrine
• Jan 10–12
Cleansing rituals are held at several
shrines throughout Tokyo in winter. Design Festa display
Young men and women whose 20th
Sanja Festival
birthdays fall in the same year stand 7
in pools full of blocks of ice and MAP R2 • Senso-ji Temple,
douse themselves with freezing 2-3-1 Asakusa, Taito-ku • 3842-0181
buckets of water. • 3rd weekend of May
Tokyo’s largest festival honors two
Tokyo Marathon
4 brothers who found a statue of
Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy, in
MAP A4 • Feb
The Japanese take pride in their their fishing nets (see p15). The
marathon runners, particu larly spirits of the brothers and the
women, who have won gold medals shrine’s deities are carried in port-
in past Olympics. Competing is a able shrines through the streets.

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