The Asakusa Festival, or the great tushy festival

Sunday, May 18


Today we headed early in the morning to the Asakusa area, the location for one of the most popular festivals in Tokyo called Sanja Matsuri, occurring about the third Sunday of May every year. The festival is held in the grounds and streets surrounding Sensoji Shrine, and three main mikoshi (highly decorated portable shrines weighing over one ton each) and 100 smaller mikoshis parade through the neighbourhood with thousands taking turns carrying them. Each village, town and city has evolved its own festival over the centuries and they are celebrated in the same way they were celebrated decades past and recall the rhythms of a simpler life when the changing of the seasons and honouring the gods was an important part of life.

It was just us and about two million people, but because there is such orderliness and respect for each other even in tight crowds, although it always seemed like a lot of people and crammed it never felt like it was too overwhelming.


As we started heading into the Asakusa area, we saw beautiful large shrines that were being put on wheels and pulled by a group of children of all ages in their traditional Japanese clothing, supported and encouraged by parents on the side. Very cute. There is usually another cart following with a group of people/children playing instruments to accompany the shrine floats, like traditional taiko drums and shakuhachi. Then there were would be crowds that would gather around to cheer on the displays.

Later we would see large groups of people, mostly men, hoisting these incredibly large and beautiful shrines on wood planks in the air and moving them so they would ring the bells on these shrines, and yelling out celebratory group cries as they did so. These shrines seemed very heavy and it was a group of about one or two hundred lifting one, and people on the side coming in and out to relieve people in almost a seamless fashion. And crowds would gather around these shrines or wait for them, cheering and clapping them on. It was noisy, beautiful chaos, and took you back in time.

OK, by now you’re wondering where the toushy part comes in?

Well, as we started heading to the festival area, there were lots of places were groups of men were naked and getting changed into the traditional outfits, consisting of a happi coat, traditional soft shoes, and then often they would be wearing what is called a “fundoshi" (interesting enough not pronounced "fun" but more like "foondoeshe") or underwear or the closest term we would have would be thong. So, excuse me for noticing but there were hundreds or thousands of men with these happi coats to the end of the backs and their toushies were showing, which for some reason amused me to no end, perhaps it was the heat and humidity on that day (yes the weather became very warm and humid since Dave’s arrival). I went into several special stores selling outfits for people participating in the festival including the special fundoshi cloth and there were even instructions on how to put one on, which again amused me. When I spoke to some of Yuki’s friends about this, they had a laugh and said that although wearing a fundoshi is an old fashioned Japanese tradition it has come back and is very popular with young men, with stores now selling different kinds of special fundoshi wear.

Well, besides the toushies, there were rows and rows of street vendors selling a great range of food, everything from popular cold kakakore (snow cones) with different syrups, grilled corn with soy sauce type topping, mochi rice dango balls sweet and savory, noodles of different types, ice cream… and we tried to eat as much as possible, which has been great for the soul but the body will definitely come back to Canada with a few more pounds, happy ones though.

Then we went on to the Senso-ji Temple, which is at the heart of Tokyo's remaining shitamachi, the narrow alley ways that recall traditional shopping, entertainment and residential districts of old Edo (Tokyo) and is one of the few temples in Japan to still have a nakamise dori, a lively shopping street within the temple grounds which goes back to a time when temples were at the centre of community and commerce.


We noticed that there was many ways for people to contribute money towards the shrine, which helps pay for the upkeep. You could throw you money into a large opening in the floor as you came to the top of temple area and then make a wish or prayer. It jingled all day with coins being thrown in by people like slot machines.

They also had this game for 100 yen where you would have these sticks in a wooden container and you would shake it until a stick came out for you. The stick would have a number on it and you would look for this number, among numerous numbers in Japanese, that were written on the front of drawers and pull out a piece of paper from the drawer with your number. This would be your fortune. I had a “medium” fortune and didn’t think it was that great. We noticed that people tied their wishes to wooden frames and thought that they must have had good fortunes and because I had a “medium” one I shouldn’t tie mine there. Later we found out that the best fortunes to get are the medium ones and if you don’t like your fortune then people tie them to the wooden frames, which is the opposite to what you would think.

After a trip to the nearby Kappabashi, the restaurant supply district, we headed home to have dinner at Veggie Paradise, which is always a wonderful treat. Tonight we had a dinner with someone working in Tokyo who is from IBM in Toronto, and Yuki prepared us a wonderful vegan spread.