March 16: Istanbul / Turkey New Attraction at Little World Inuyama in Inuyama City, Aichi Prefecture. Featuring Turkish food, culture, goods and exhibitions. You can also try on some traditional Turkish costumes. Visit the website for more details http://www.littleworld.jp/english
April 6-7: Inuyama Matsuri at Inuyama-jo Castle in Inuyama City, Aichi Prefecture. This festival first started in 1635 and features 13 parade floats, lavishly decorated and dating from the 17th century. They are paraded under the beautiful cherry blossoms. At night they are decorated with 365 paper lanterns (chochin).
April 6-7: Gifu Matsuri in the center of Gifu City. Kashimori Shrine, Inaba Shrine and Kogane Shrine host the festival, which features parade floats and street food vendors.
April 6-21: Tulip Festival at Kiso Sansen Koen in Kaizu City Gifu. The park is a blaze of colour with beautiful tulips that can be seen next to the cherry blossoms. There are also many events happening on the weekend. Open from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday - Friday, and 800 am to 6:00 pm Saturday - Sunday. http://www.kisosansenkoen.go.jp/e/
April 14-15: Takayama Festival – one of the most spectacular festivals in Japan, featuring elaborate festival floats. The spring festival is also known as Sanno Festival. There are about a dozen festival floats or yatai as they are known in Japan, and each float is lit with 100 paper lanterns.
For more information on what is happening in Japan, you should check out the following travel guide books: (click on the image for more information)
We attended the Gifu Ume Matsuri on Sunday and it was a lot of fun. It was a beautiful sunny day although a little cold and the plum blossoms were almost at their peak.
ReplyDeleteNice short list of happenings.
ReplyDeleteThank you, It is just a taste of what is to come in the area for spring. More info coming soon :)
DeleteThis sounds good! You wouldn't be willing to provide free bed&breakfast for an AWOL Tokyoite, would you? :D
ReplyDeleteI hope you're going to publish lots of picture of all these events!
You would be welcome any time to Gifu, Ru. We went to the Gifu Ume Matsuri on the weekend, so post hopefully coming soon. Will also try to get to the other events as well if possible. Stay tuned :)
DeleteJohn
I couldn't make it last year, but I'll try to go and see the Takayama Festival this year! :D
ReplyDeleteThanks ZJ, It is one of the most famous and best in Japan, so definitely worth a visit. The floats are amazing :)
DeleteJohn