Narita Gion Festival

Ricky, a researcher from Taiwan, told me about a festival at Narita and so I decided to go with him and everyone else. This festival is, of course, held in Narita and to get their by train, 3 transfers must be made.

Train route from Tsukuba to Narita on Hyperdia

Before talking about the festival, let me first tell you about the adventure everyone had trying to get there. The first connection went without any trouble. In the second connection, we were waiting on the track for the local train instead of the rapid train and lost about 10 minutes, which also made us missed the third connection. Looking at the timetable, we realized that we had to wait another 20 minutes for another train.

See the ② and ④ up there? At first, I didn't know what it meant, but later, everyone knew the meaning of it... by experience. We saw the sign that says "Platform 4 for Narita" and waited there. And when the time came... we noticed that the train didn't come and just when it's too late... we saw the train at platform 2! So, as you might have guessed, the number in the circles show the platform number. The result was that we had to wait another half an hour for the next train.

Next, let's move on to the festival. I'm not quite sure of the importance of this festival, since it's not mentioned on any of the websites I've been to. But it consists of floats being pulled by rope around the Narita area. It's somewhat hard to explain in words, so let the video and the pictures below better show you the details!

A refreshing snack is mandatory on such a hot day!

If it's too hot outside, you can also see the festival via television.
(But then, what's the point of coming!?)

One of the refreshment stands

After the parade, all the floats are gathered at the temple
(There's more outside of the frame)

Just outside the temple, there are a lot of game and food stands, similar to Thai's temple festival (งานวัด)

Luckily, on the way back, there's not really any "getting lost" incidents and we got back to Tsukuba safely and on time. For summer in Japan, there's one other event which I'll try the hardest not to miss — the fireworks festival (Hanabi Taikai)!