Baby Sumo Costumes

With inbound tourism on the rise and range expats residing and working in Japan increasing constantly, the largest (or many uncommon) festivals today get lots of coverage online. Exactly what a lot of people might not realize, however, is you can find hundreds if not thousands of a lot smaller festivals that take place every year.

In suburbs of larger towns and cities, these festivals can attract a few hundred folks. But once you obtain away to the country side, they may be as small as just a couple of dozen visitors. These usually entice individuals from town straight away surrounding a tiny playground, shrine, or temple just. Frequently, people who have relocated from the area in past times comes straight back for event and also to meet up with family and old buddies.

I personally survive the outskirts of a little city within the south of Osaka Prefecture, and my partner's parents reside in a small village somewhat more up in to the hills, so I think about myself lucky in that I get to see a number of the great variety of tiny local matsuri (祭り).

Hatsu-uma Matsuri (初午祭)

As soon as every one of the baskets of mochi being emptied, everyone kinds through their haul (some individuals ended up with two or three big plastic bags full) and pull out any that have figures. Put up next to the shrine is a big stall with house windows numbered to correspond to the figures in the rice desserts. Upon presenting your numbered desserts to the people at stall, you obtain rewards, slightly like a raffle. The prizes were all simple household items like bins of areas, plastic buckets, or bottles of washing detergent. With all the prizes gathered, the festival was done. I happened to be only indeed there to view therefore I don't get any mochi for myself, however some of local people provided me with a tiny couple of desserts to collect.

Kawachi Natsu Matsuri (河内夏祭り)

Kawakami-jinja (川上神社) is a little shrine within the small town of Hatohara (鳩原) near the edge between Osaka and Nara Prefectures in the foothills surrounding Mt. Kongo (金剛山). This tiny hill shrine is scheduled straight back from the primary roadway and up a brief collection of tips. Beyond the torii (鳥居) that marks the entry is a tiny courtyard with the main hallway becoming set-back in among the list of trees up a brief but high path.

Aki matsuri means “fall festival”, plus the one at Kawakami-jinja happens round the very first Sunday in October. Initial event associated with time is a sumo wrestling competition for children between one and two yrs old. A sumo band is established in a tiny area behind the courtyard and chairs set up to either part. Babies are assigned to either the higashi (東; eastern) or nishi (西; west) teams. The rules tend to be literally the same as a standard sumo bout: 1st baby/wrestler to be knocked-down or forced from the group is the loser, together with matches are officiated by a referee clad in the standard sumo referee garb. The kids removed by themselves this time by either sitting down or running out of this ring as soon as the match began.