Chalk this up in the category of bizarre Japan. This weekend I had the chance to go to Kanamara Matsuri, commonly referred to by foreigners as “The Penis Festival.” Every year Kanamara Shrine holds this festival on the 1st Sunday in April in Kawasaki, Kanagawa. According to Wikipedia:

The Kanamara Matsuri is centered around a local penis-venerating shrine, once popular among prostitutes who wished to pray for protection against sexually transmitted diseases. It is said that there are divine protections also in business prosperity and the clan’s prosperity, easy delivery, marriage, and married couple harmony, etc. Today, the festival is used to raise money for HIV research. There’s also a legend of a demon that hid inside a young girl and castrated two young men on their wedding nights before a blacksmith fashioned an iron phallus that was used to break the demon’s teeth, leading to the enshrinement of the item.

Metropolis had this to say in their article about Kanamara Matsuri:

Today, the highlights of this saucy festival include transvestites parading through the town’s streets carrying a mikoshi (portable shrine) with a humongous pink phallus on top. And, if that’s not guaranteed to make you blush as deeply as the surrounding cherry blossoms, then the spectacle of grandmas and grandpas sucking on carnal candy and sweetmeat replicas of this stupendous phallus, is more than likely to. Other attractions include locals carving penises out of daikon (radish), children and young women sitting astride penis-shaped seesaws for good luck and fertility blessings, as well as a seated banquet in the compound of Kanamara Jinja (aka Wakamiya Hachiman-gu shrine) where the phallic radishes are auctioned.

As you might expect, because of the nature of this festival, the photos and videos I have are probably not safe for work (NSFW), but neither are they x-rated. The photos and videos from Kanamara Matsuri are not for everyone; however, they are somewhat interesting, sometimes surprising, usually inappropriate and definitely bizarre. If this sounds like something that would interest you, then continue on at your own risk to see the photos and a movie.

I have been in Japan for more than 3 years now and I am very rarely surprised by much of anything anymore…That being said, I was surprised about a couple things at this festival…

I thought a lot of people would be somewhat shy around the giant phallus, but it pretty much the opposite. I was really surprised how people were not only posing but holding their poses and waiting for everyone to take photos! Some people would even do a couple different poses, turn to one side, then turn to the other.

Click now for J-List

And I mean it is not like it isn’t obvious that EVERYONE is either taking photos and/or videos of them. See for yourself.

The other thing that surprised me was how many people brought young children and made it a family event. A lot of families seem fine with their young sons or daughters sucking on a lollipop shaped like a penis or having the children pose with the big phallus. I mean, really? You think that even though everyone obviously is taking photos that they will not take your photo or is it that you just don’t care?

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t consider myself conservative by any means and I was not offended, embarrassed, or uncomfortable to be at the penis festival, but just knowing that my mom and dad read my website from time to time makes me somewhat uncomfortable posting about Kanamara Matsuri! I am not sure I would like to go to this festival with my parents and if I had kids, if I were to bring them, I seriously doubt I would let them suck a penis or vagina shaped lollipop with so many people/photographers around. Especially in Japan where everyone has a cellphone, and every cellphone can take photos and/or videos. I mean, REALLY? These people don’t mind? This isn’t an awkward situation?

Anyway, there are two main parts to the penis festival, the parade and the events at the shrine. The parade is fairly short and participants carry around 3 portable shrines. A big steel phallus, a big pink phallus (carried by transvestites) and a wooden one.

The shrine is where most of these photos are from and maybe you can get a good idea of what goes on there. In addition to posing with penis you can, carve a penis (or vagina) from a large radish, eat food shaped like a penis (or vagina), walk over a relatively small penis or buy numerous things shaped like a penis (or vagina), all presumably for good luck with being fertile and protection from HIV and other STDs.

Over 2500 unique products from Japan — click now!

Now this guy has the right idea.

If you want to see more, there are a lot more photos of the penis festival in my gallery. The password is “i am mature” with NO spaces and NO quotations. Below is a video. If you cannot see it, here it is in google video.

J-List is a peaceful island of Japanese pop culture for you

Click now!

There are a couple of differences from the other two festivals. The main one being of course the shapes of the lanterns, which are large fans. Also, this festival is for the kids and you will see a lot of young children pulling the floats. Lastly, instead of going in a circular route, the parade basically makes a straight line. I found that the the further back I went in the parade route the fewer people where there. So if you want a lot of space, head towards the end. Just be sure to check with the tourist information center at Hirosaki Station to find out where the route is as it is not really obvious.

This was the first of the 3 lantern festivals I went to, so maybe I was more impressed because of it, but I really enjoyed Neputa Matsuri. The floats aren’t as impressive as the other two, but still pretty amazing to me! You can find a little more information here.

Nebuta Matsuri is a lot more famous, but I actually prefer Tachi Neputa.

Nebuta is so famous that it is just too crowded. Don’t get me wrong, Tachi Neputa doesn’t have a lot of open space but it is not even comparable to the crowds at Nebuta. You can arrive 30-45 minutes ahead of time and easily find some front row space somewhere along the route.

Also the parade moves along much faster than Nebuta. Because it is so famous and there are so many people waiting to see it, Nebuta moves along at a snails pace…even for me, a photographer who likes to take his time taking photos.

Finally, I just liked the song better at Tachi Neputa. Here are a few more photos below and check out the gallery if you want to see all of them. Here is some more information about Tachi Neputa.

• • Nebuta in Aomori(most famous and has huge lantern floats)
  • Neputa in Hirosaki (smaller fan shaped lanterns)
  • Tachi Neputa in Goshogawara (instead of huge wide lanterns, this one has really tall ones…up to 22 meters and 16 tons!)

One thing you need to know about Nebuta is that it is REALLY crowded. If you are just a spectactor it might not matter as much, but if you are a photographer, you should do one of the following things to be able to get an unobstructed view:

• • Arrive early, as in at least a couple of hours early and try to find some unclaimed space.
  • Most likely you will need to speak Japanese but you could contact the Aomori Tourist Center and find out about reserving seats (should be done at months in advance as reserved front row seats sell out early).
  • Really the best advice I can give you is to bring a small ladder. About one hour to 45 minutes before, the police will block off the sides of the intersections where the parade will turn and people rush, push, pull, muscle and squeeze to fill these premium spaces. If you bring a step ladder (or find something to stand on) you can get a strait on view of the festival and have nobody get in your way.

Sendai Tanabata is considered one of Tohoku’s top 3 festivals and might be worth the trip to Tohoku if you have the time. I wouldn’t recommend making the trip for those with a short stay in Japan, but for those living in Japan, Sendai Tanabata, along with a trip to Matsushima, could make for a nice weekend.

I say along with Matsushima, because to be honest there isn’t much to Sendai Tanabata. Basically, these decorations are hung all through the covered shopping street and it is really crowded. The decorations are paid for by the shops are really advertisements when in comes down to it; however, some of them are quite impressive. I live close to Sendai, so I have been twice, but I do not feel the need to go a third time.

As a photographer, I feel like you can make some interesting photos. I particularly enjoyed just waiting behind these decorations for people to walk through them. If you are looking for more specific information about Sendai Tanabata here is Sendai City’s Official Tanabata Site or wikipedia.

Question:
What did you see at Gion Matsuri?

Answer:
The back of heads.

Yeah it is a joke, but it can’t be more true. Unless you reserve a seat (link is in Japanese but you can call 075.752.0227 from 9-5 and they should have an English speaker) or arrive super early, don’t expect to get many photos without getting some random person entering your frame. I was climbing on anything I could find space on, which usually meant waiting for another person to get off and it was still hard to get clear shots, unless I was shooting up.

Overall, I thought it was interesting and worth checking out even though it moves a little slow. Below you can see the rope the participators pull to move and turn this gigantic floats at 90 degree angles. There are probably about 20 people pulling.

Anyway, the day I went was just so hot and humid I couldn’t stand to be there more than about an hour before I ventured off into the photographer’s paradise that is Kyoto!

More general and historical information can be found at the Kyoto City Tourism site.

For more information and a few photos, see the official Satoland Site.

Thanks to Greg Logan for the photos!

These ice sculptures (are maybe I should say ice advertisements because that is pretty much what they are) are cool but the best part or the little ice bars that open up at night. In 2007, there was a Baily’s, Hennessey and even a Song Park Karaoke place where you could sing a song and you get a score depending on how accurate you were and then depending on your score you would get a coupon for a real establishment of Song Park.

Check out the video of a few of the ice bars here and a few more photos after the jump.

I actually went a few days before it started and left on the second day because it was a lot cheaper to do it that way. I suggest doing it this way not only because it is cheaper, but also because most of the big ones are (almost) done anyway and you can also see how they are made.

Of course it seems whenever I go to Hokkaido I am really unlucky with the weather because on the first day I was it it was so warm that it was raining and almost ruined a lot of the sculptures. The main part of the snow festival is in Odori Park but there 2 other places to check out, Sato Land and Susukino. I have a different post about the ice sculptures and ice bars in Susukino.

At the Odori Park site, the big sculptures a lot of times are used as stages for different perfomances throughrout the festival. As you can see below, they even built a (not so) small jump for skiers and snowboarders to do some tricks.

On a side note, if you are looking for something else to do because maybe you are arriving before the Sapporo Snow Festival starts or staying after it ends, you may want to check out the smaller and lesser known Chitose Ice Festival.

Check out more photos after the jump or check out a video of some performances and other happenings at the Sapporo Snow Festival.

*NOTICE*

By submitting your photographs you give me the right to edit and publish your photograph(s) for babibubebo.com.

Previous Winners:

• Greg Logan
• Laura Kumataka
• Myriam Ward (Kamakura)
• Laurenz Bobke (Shinjuku Gyoen)