Morioka Matsuri

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As you know Japan is known for its famous festivals which you can find just about in any town in this country and nearly every weekend! Morioka is host to a few major festivals every year. The latest matsuri had women, men and children all dressed up in colourful outfits, parading down the streets with portable shrines and colourful floats all to the sounds of taiko (Japanese drums). The floats we’re so big and you could see that so much detail went into each one. It was hosted down Morioka’s main street Odori. Afterwards we made our way to the local shrine where they had a small fair, where you could buy all sorts of traditional Japanese foods and play games like “Kinyo Sukui” where you win as many gold fish as you can catch! (It’s finding a place to keep them afterwards that’s the problem) On our way home we ended up stopping to talk to a few locals on the side of the road, where a family who had been selling fruit for the festival earlier that afternoon, had closed up shop and were sitting on old crates out the front drinking sake; it definitely topped off the night. The streets were all lit with lanterns nearly the whole way home, it was beautiful!

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