Chiyoda-ku Tourist Association will distribute “Sanno Matsuri: How to Enjoy the Sanno Festival Guide,” which summarizes the highlights of the Sanno Festival to be held from June 7 to 17.
The Sanno Matsuri is one of the “Three Great Festivals of Japan” along with the “Three Great Festivals of Edo”, the Gion Festival in Kyoto, and the Tenjin Festival in Osaka. Since the festival lasts for 11 days, the “Sanno Matsuri How to Enjoy Guide” includes contents that even beginners can enjoy the festival.
During the 11-day festival period, the “Yasaka Shrine Festival”, “Shinko Matsuri”, “Dedication of the tea garden in the precincts of the shrine and the dedication of new Sayama tea”, “Ujiko (shrine parishioners) miyari”, “Daito Matsuri”, “Sanno Kashosai”, etc. will be held.
The “Shinko Matsuri” held every other year is a particularly large event, with 500 people dressed in imperial costumes parading in a procession of up to 300 meters along a 23-kilometer route that includes Nagatacho, Yotsuya, Kojimachi, Kudan, the Imperial Palace, Tokyo Station area, Kasumigaseki, Ginza, and Nihonbashi.
This year, to celebrate the revival of the festival after a six-year absence, an “elephant float,” which was brought to Edo by order of the 8th shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, and which made its first appearance at the Sanno Festival during the Edo period (1603-1868), will also make its first appearance on June 7. It is said that visitors can enjoy the sensation of time-traveling back to the Edo period while still being in the city.
Other highlights of the festival include the only time in Japan that a portable shrine is allowed inside the Imperial Palace, the combined mikoshi entry at Hie Shrine’s Otokoizaka, where the mikoshi is carried up 52 stone steps, and the moment when 16 portable shrines point their shrines to the heavens in the center of the Nihonbashi Bridge.
The “Sanno Matsuri How to Enjoy Guide” has been available at tourist information centers and hotels in Chiyoda City since May 30, and the web version is already available in Japanese and English.
© Source travel watch
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