Sanja Matsuri

This past weekend, I didn't have time to post because I was out at one of Tokyo's largest festivals held in Asakusa. It's called Sanja matsuri and thousands of ppl come to see the mikoshi and the yakuza who carry them.
This was friday evening. We got really close on some small mikoshi.

Ending their route at the Asakusa shrine.

There were so many street food stalls. Everything from chicken steak, thai noodles,


We did the goldfish game and laurel and her friends caught one, I didn't. However, the guy gave me a small one, which happened to be the only one that died the next day.

Sunday: We arrived at Asakusa in the afternoon, and found that all the streets were blocked off. It was wierd walking in the middle of a large tokyo avenue. We were lucky and saw one of the mikoshi on their route. Laurel almost got knocked over when the big crowd turned around the corner.

7:00 Waiting for the mikoshi to arrive at the Asakusa gate. There were thousands of ppl.

The mikoshi stopped in the middle of the intersection, twirled around, and then continued on.

We moved on to the shopping street and waited for the last procession. We ended up getting a great view of all the neighborhood mikoshi carriers.

It was a bit scary watching hundreds of ppl come down the street with the big mikoshi.

Two yakuza got into a fight right in front of us.

Spectacular sight.


This is a youtube video of the same festival.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=ja&v=d4-PRjCedFE&gl=JP