Today I want to discuss about historical and modern festivals in Japan, since so much is going on during summertime.
Last time I introduced 夏祭り summer festival and the 花火大会 firework. Another traditional holiday during my summer program time is 海の日 day of sea. This is a national holiday although our school did not have a day off. Day of Sea is created to give thanks to the sea as Japan is a country surrounded by sea. It takes place every year at the third Monday of July. At Odaiba, there was a lantern lit up activity which looked very beautiful. So although it is a bit far from our campus, we insisted in experiencing the festival atmosphere. There were many people at that activity but it was well-ordered. Many colorful lanterns lied on the ground being arranged into different shapes. (Adobe is one of the most famous seaside attraction in Tokyo) It was a pity that we had to return early to catch the bus back to school, but we stayed to see the lanterns lit up with the background of sunset. According to volunteers there, this activity was held every year for 14 years and there were over ten thousand lanterns. Also, Japan is the only country which celebrates sea as a national holiday. My teacher also told me that apart from day of sea there is also day of mountain in Japan. I can feel that Japanese people really appreciate the gifts from nature.
Apart from these festivals that existed for a long time, there are many new special days made by the creative Japanese people. For instance, this weekend I went to Yokohama and very luckily, I bumped into a Pikachu festival. This festival was created in 2014 and since then the start of August every year, over thousands of Pikachu in Pokemon would appear near the port of Yokohama. When I was in Yokohama, it was still not the time for Pikachu march, but already everywhere was filled with toys and posters of Pikachu. The whole subway station was decorated with Pikachu and there were many Pikachu themed doll-catching machines. I even caught a big Pikachu toy the first time I tried to play this machine! It was so much fun to see a whole area covered with an anime character and aside from Japan I don’t think I would be able to see this kind of festival in any other countries.
