I’m Off to See the World Aquatics Championships!
I’d heard a while ago that my Swedish friend’s child was very promising in diving, and we even talked about them possibly making it to the World Championships or Olympics someday. But guess what, they actually got selected to represent Sweden and would be coming to the World Aquatics Championships held in Fukuoka! So, we all decided to come to Fukuoka to cheer them on.
It turned out to be quite difficult to find accommodation during the preliminary rounds, and for good reason! The Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival was being held at the exact same time, and it was apparently its first full-scale revival since the pandemic. Anyway, I was so busy scrambling to secure World Championships tickets, even for my Swedish friends coming to Japan, that I didn’t even bother to look it up. It was just a vague thought in the back of my mind.
A Festival Starting at 4:59 AM?
Once I got there and finally had a bit of time, I looked it up out of curiosity. Turns out, the “Kushida-iri” (entering Kushida Shrine) on the final day of Hakata Gion Yamakasa starts at 4:59 AM. What?! That early? (And what’s with that specific time…?) But hey, opportunities like this don’t come around often, so I decided to go. I left my hotel around 4:00 AM and walked towards Kushida Shrine. More and more people kept appearing, and even though it was 4:00 AM, one of the shopping streets leading to the shrine was packed like this (it definitely doesn’t look like a 4 AM photo, does it?).
The Yamakasa Floats Are Huge!
I had almost no prior knowledge about what kind of festival it was, so I was surprised when I first saw the huge Yamakasa float. “Are they really going to pull something this enormous around?” I thought.
But after looking around a bit, it seemed that the Eighth Yamakasa float I’d just seen was the largest, and the others were generally about the same size as the one in this photo.
Powerful Float Pulling
It was still early in the morning and dark, but there was a powerful mix of pre-festival stillness and excitement in the air. I tried to get closer to Kushida Shrine, but the crowd was so dense that I couldn’t move at all. Before I knew it, 4:59 AM, the start time, was approaching. Then an announcement came: “5 minutes remaining, representatives of the Kakiyama floats… last year’s Oiyama Kushida-iri time was 36.59 seconds.” At the time, I didn’t understand what that meant, but it seems they’re competing for the fastest time to dash into Kushida Shrine from a certain point. That’s why there were so many people that I couldn’t even get close to the shrine! Even just watching each Yamakasa float run towards the starting point was incredibly impressive and took me by surprise.
Furthermore, after completing the Kushida-iri, the Yamakasa floats race through the town. It seems they’re also competing for the time it takes to run through the town, continuing to run non-stop for about 40 minutes. That’s why there are buckets full of water placed along the roadside, and people are splashing water on the men pulling the floats. Even though the participants are changing out, pulling something of this size for that long must require an incredible amount of stamina.
Even in the latter half, when they must be exhausted, the intensity is still incredible.
And if you look closely, that “festival man” was there too, but this time it seemed he was there for NHK coverage, not Itte Q! (a popular TV show).
Man, festivals are just great! With the impact of COVID, I haven’t carried a mikoshi (portable shrine) at Torigoe in years, so seeing this really gets my blood pumping and makes me want to join in. I’m so envious!
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