There are hundreds of festivals in Japan, each Shinto shrine holding its own festival once a year. Major ones usually take place in summer, but I was lucky to attend a Japanese festival for the first time in September when I arrived in Japan.
It was a small festival and I got there by chance. A few friends from the dorm and I were attracted by the beautiful traditional music sound and delicious food smell, so we decided to go there and see what was happening. As soon as we reached the shrine, we felt like stepping into another world, a world similar to the one created by Hayao Miyazaki in Spirited Away, a fascinating world! We didn’t know anything about a festival there, so we asked someone about the name of the festival. It was named just like the shrine, Ana Hachimangu Festival.
The participants, locals from our neighborhood, welcomed us warmly and invited us to take part in the Obon dance and the lottery they were organizing. I was lucky to win a hair dryer, which I actually needed, haha. We also tried some of the festival foods from the stands that were there, such as takoyaki, okonomiyaki, kakigoori. It was a pleasant way of spending a Saturday night and interacting with people from our neighborhood.
