River of Lights and Dancing 'Til Sundown :: Hyakumangoku Matsuri ~ Narubeku

Hyakumangoku matsuri is a summer festival held in Kanazawa every year, and it's apparently the biggest annual festival of the year. It goes from Friday night to Sunday, with a bunch of different events throughout the three days. This was my first experience with a Japanese summer festival, and it was the stuff of dreams. And also nightmares (more on that later).

Kaga Yuzen Tohro-Nagashi

Friday night was magical. Kaga Yuzen Tohro-Nagashi is one of the biggest events of Hyakumangoku Matsuri where over 1000 lanterns float down the Asanogawa river accompanied by different types of traditional Japanese music, such as Taiko and Enka. It was beautiful, and peaceful, and looked like it was a scene straight out of a Disney movie. Also a bit like the River of Life from Mushi-shi (a really great bittersweet manga/anime about spirits, definitely watch if you like anime!).

There was a double rainbow right next to the river before sunset

Asanogawa river

Right before sunset, Tommy (check out his blog!) and I climbed down into the river and went up to where they were releasing the lanterns so that we could get a better view. There were a ton of very excited and adorable elementary school kids there releasing the lanterns into the river, where they joined eventually with a other lanterns released upstream. It's hard to describe how beautiful the river looked with all the uniquely painted lanterns meandering through all the rocks, so here are some really crappy phone camera pictures to give you an idea of what it looked like.

Hyakumangoku Gyoretsu

On Saturday, there was a parade that went through Kanazawa, starting from Kanazawa eki. It started around 12 with a huge taiko performance followed by people in samurai armor, traditional firefighters, lion dancers, baton twirlers, several bands, and acrobats. The streets were completely packed full of people watching the parade, so it was really hard to get around. Nearly impossible, actually. Zoey (check out her blog!) and I made the mistake of trying to walk through the crowd of people gathered to watch the opening taiko drums, and it was...an experience to say the least. I ended up getting pushed into other people by old Japanese ladies constantly, insistently, and urgently for what felt like an eternity. There was nothing I could do to get out or keep from being pressed against everybody in front and behind me, and at one point I even got completely pushed over. Not something I would want to ever go through again.

Hyakumangoku Odori-Nagashi

Saturday was also the day of a gigantic dance contest between more than 80 groups of people (company employees, schools, cultural clubs, etc) where we all lined up on a street and danced to three traditional Hyakumangoku songs for two hours. These dances were more like slow marches with different moves thrown in like sash waving and skipping while holding hands and various types of hand waving, and while I felt really silly marching in a happi coat and headband, it was very fun and lighthearted. All the other groups wore different outfits and had different moves, so it was especially interesting to watch the other groups dancing alongside us.