Himeji Matsuri

On the weekend, Lauren, Tina, Jono, Jodi, Bill and I decided to go to the Himeji Matsuri. Matsuri in English means festival. The Himeji Matsuri was all about the harvest. Shrines would be carried all the way down the main street and into the castle and the people would pray for a good harvest.



Many young men would carry these heavy shrines that weighed about one tonne and they would lift them in the air, throw them and then catch them again. It was amazing to watch. There were fifty men all carrying this one shrine and they had the most amazing strength and stamina.


They carried it for about two to three hundred metres down the main street and through the castle gates. Inside the shrines, there were young boys playing the drums. They kept the beat going so that the men carrying the shrines would know when to lift the shrine in the air and when to bring it back down.

They all wore traditional costumes that looked a lot like the costumes that the sumo wrestlers wore.


It was hard to get used to the fact that there were all these men walking around with no pants on without a care in the world! I found it hard to know where to look at times!


We ate lots of food at the festival including toffee coated strawberries, fried chicken, takoyaki (octopus balls) and barbequed oysters.




All the food was absolutely delicious! After satisfying our stomachs, Tina and I decided to have a go at playing the taiko (drums). It looks so much easier than it actually is. This Japanese man was teaching us how to play, but I just couldn’t quite get the hang of it. It was so funny though, because while Tina and I were practising, there was a huge crowd around us watching and listening to how bad we were! It was like we were celebrities, but we were really noone! It was good fun to have a go, though.

Once our drum session was over, we went to the top of this building and got an awesome birds-eye view of the Himeji Castle and the section where all the food tents were. It looked amazing.

It turned out to be a great day. We got to experience a taste of the Himeji culture seeing traditional costumes, tasting delicious traditional Japanese foods and playing traditional Japanese instruments. Where else would you get to do any of this? Sometimes I look back on all of my photos and then and think to myself, “how lucky am I to get to experience something so unique and interesting that I would otherwise, never get to see in my life had I not taken up the opportunity to come to Japan.” Right now, I am having the time of my life!