Day three of the festival is the day when all the shrine get paraded through their actual immediate neighbourhood. The past two days have been about going to and from the shrine and small processions.
The day actually starts very early at the shrine with a ceremony where groups compete to move the big mikoshi associated with the shrine. Apparently it is rather a rambunctious affair and they don’t want random tourist getting in the way. And its a 06:00, a little early for us.
On Saturday the main street was still in use by vehicles – the parade was crossing with the traffic lights. Not today, the police had blocked the street top and bottom with big buses and people and mikoshi were all over the street.
We came across one group getting ready to send out their kid’s mikoshi.
In this picture the kids were getting organized to carry the shrine. They played round of ‘rock paper scissors’ (which is called janken in Japanese). The little girl came out on top. She’s so tiny that they put her up on the carry handles to start things off. In her hands you can just see a wooden stick. She has a pair that she claps in a set pattern. ‘Clack clack clack. Clack clack clack. Clack’ Everyone else claps along in that pattern and off they went.
This group had a cart with a drum leading them.
The cart was being pulled by the local grandmothers – forgot to take a picture of them – oops!
And here they are in action:
At this point we had pretty much had enough of the whistles, the drums, the clacking of sticks, so we decided to go elsewhere. Korea-town seemed like a good idea – maybe some street food? We took the metro, then a JR train and got to the station without incident. Walked out of the station into a wall of people. Every person in Tokyo who wasn’t at the Sanja was on this street, especially if they were under 25. We looked up the street and it was a mob scene and the lines at all the shops were out the door.
We looked at each other and said ‘Um, no.’ Where are we? One stop from Shinjuku, where there is a big park. Even on a Sunday there would be a quiet green spot to relax in. So that is what we did. Found a spot on a bench under a tree, watched the world go by. And then walked to a little pub called ‘Watering Hole’ for a beer and a chat with the folks at the next table (who were from Vancouver…)
By the time we got back to Asakusa the party was still going on, the streets were still closed to traffic. The mikoshi were tucked away for another year and the shrine bearers were out drinking beer and having fun.
It was all that we expected – and then some!
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