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Blogging about Japan always makes me want to go back there again. Always. And I think that’s the charm of this beautiful country. I speak a lot about the old and the new. I love how the two converge into this explosion of culture and uniqueness.

And one of the charms of the land of the rising sun? It has to be the number of festivals held in various places at any given time in any given season. No matter when you decide to visit Japan, there is bound to be a festival or cultural event to entice you. We went in December, one of the scarcest months for festivals (I guess they need time to rest too) and still we managed to encounter a few small ones. And then there was this big one… So let’s just jump into it!

Chichibu, Saitama

To be honest, I planned this one and kept thinking if we should actually go or not. The thing is, Chichibu is a little far from Tokyo. And the only reason we are going there is for the Chichibu Float Festival. But this drew me in:

The Chichibu Night Festival (秩父夜祭, Chichibu Yomatsuri) is the festival of Chichibu Shrine in Chichibu City, Saitama Prefecture, just 90 minutes from central Tokyo. The main events of the Chichibu Festival take place on December 3.

The Chichibu Night Festival is considered one of Japan’s top three festivals to feature floats, the others being Kyoto’s Gion Matsuri and the Takayama Matsuri.

Its floats are ornately decorated with lanterns, tapestries and gilded wood carvings and are accompanied by drum and flute music. The festival’s other attraction is its fireworks display, which lasts almost two and a half hours and gives you the rare opportunity to enjoy Japanese fireworks during winter. Additionally, the streets are lined with stands selling festival foods and amazake (sweet rice wine) to combat the cold December night.

Source: japan-guide.com

“One of Japan’s top three festivals to feature floats”, how can we not visit? ;) So, after our trip to Kawagoe, we decided to detour before heading home… Destination: Chichibu, of course.

Upon arrival, we were greeted with stalls upon stalls of food. This was still within the train station. And as we walked out of the train station, there was a town hall outdoor area with, guess what, more food stalls. We thought it was mad. But this was just the beginning…

And yes, it was already about 7pm, so we decided we needed at least some food in our tummy. Our street food culinary adventure began.

Between all the food discovery, gorgeous fireworks display entertained us (and kept us a little distracted from the cold cold winter, at least for a tiny bit).

We started walking away from the train station to find what I felt was the main event of this whole festival: the floats.

We didn’t find them straight away, but we did find these cuties floating around in a small pool… A typical Japanese festival game, many kids surrounded the area to get a chance to scoop some rewards. I’m not certain of the rule, but in one of the pools, there were some really kawaii characters floating around, including Doraemon, Hello Kitty, Kewpie and Hamutaro.

We continued our walk and heard – from a distance – drum sounds. And knowing me, I got super excited in thinking that we have found one of the festival floats. We followed the sounds and found a group performing a drum ceremony of some sort. Not the floats, but still cool nonetheless…

Our search for the festival floats continued. We walked upon, literally, hundreds of food stalls. Each street we turned to, there were hundreds of people standing around various stalls. Seriously, the most food stalls I’ve ever seen in my whole life, ever. It was a memorable sight, although after a while, every stall looked the same and we couldn’t differentiate the streets.

But of course, with so many food stalls, we kept stalling (get it? *winks*) to buy some food for our tummies. We had a feast! From cheese potatoes to omelette sausages to okonomiyaki on a stick to chocolate waffles to my favourite candied fruits for dessert. Yes. It was food glorious food indeed.

Personal observation: If you are planning to budget your trip and calculate your spending, festivals might make it difficult. Everything is cash only with no receipt, and after a while you’re not even sure what you’ve actually bought! LOL.

The food adventure stopped when we found a little street corner that had been blocked off with a number of policemen and a group of Japanese standing around. We too stood around to try and find out what’s happening, hoping that this would be our chance to find the festival floats!

After about close to half an hour of standing in the freezing cold weather (it was numbing), we finally heard the sounds and the cheers and then… Along came the float!

Beautiful! Not only was it majestic, but I could see the effort of these men in carrying that huge-as float around the whole town. Yep, these floats weren’t machine operated, they were carried by men. Crazy! They would shout in unison to organise their footing and positioning. They would slowly lift up the float and adjust it. Amazing.

I was happy. The wait was worth it. So we tried to make our way back to the station as we did not book a rapid train (and it was already fully booked by the time we got to the station) so we wanted to leave before the crowd.

And on our way, we were greeted with more magic. Fireworks.

After taking some random detours due to road blocks and getting lost in the process, we stumbled upon the main road where there were plenty of carnival games. Again, more cuteness with Doraemon and Anpan-man and more.

As we walked closer toward the station, we saw various people slurping their ramen. Seemed like a good idea to warm our freezing bodies, so we too indulged in a bowl to share.

That warm bowl of ramen sure warmed our bodies just like the fireworks and floats warmed our hearts (yes, cheesy, sorry, couldn’t help it).

We left Chichibu in a very packed train back to Shinjuku via Ikebukuro. That was a cultural experience I wouldn’t forget. I’d encourage Japan visitors to at least visit one of these festivals and to experience it for yourself.

Which festival would you consider worth going, anywhere in the world? Why?