Kanazawa’s 3-Day Festival: Hyakumangoku
08.02.2019
2019 May 31st – June 2nd jump to festival schedule below The largest Japanese festival of Kanazawa is a three-day bash at the start of June centered around the city’s rich samurai and artisan history. Taiko drums, lanterns on the riv…
Sakura Season! How to see Kanazawa’s Cherry Blossoms in One Day
26.01.2019
If you're lucky enough to be in Kanazawa for the sakura season, here's your one-day itinerary for seeing all the best cherry blossom spots in the city!
Two Japanese Ice House Festivals: Winter Warmup & Summer Snow
08.12.2018
courtesy the city of Kanazawa In southeast Kanazawa, on a mountainside, nestled in a dense forest, up a hill and beside a lake, is a tiny thatched hut called Himuro Koya, the Ice House Cottage. Twice a year folks from all over Ishikawa Pre…
The Story of Tatemachi Street’s Monster Fan
07.11.2018
If it’s one thing Japan is known for, it’s monsters and monster-sized . . . well, everything! Monster lizards rising up along the shores as a metaphor for nuclear destruction, monster hornets in the heat of summer as big as your fist, pock…
Noyaki: Wildfire Earthenware on Kanazawa’s Beach
26.09.2018
Once every summer, just as the temperatures are coming down from their peak, a god of fire is called to work the creation of a unique kind of Japanese earthenware on Kanazawa’s shores. Noyaki, literally translated as “wild burning…
Celebrating the New Year in Kanazawa
24.09.2018
Ring a temple bell, get your shrine fortune, and watch acrobatic Japanese firefighters strip in the snow! Here's what to expect for New Year's in Kanazawa.
Doburoku Festival: Sake Celebrations in Shirakawago!
18.08.2018
Japan has very strict provisions on sake brewing. If you want to make nihon-shu, the drink referred to in English as sake, you have to register and establish a brewery under particular guidelines. Moonshine sake is forbidden. Except in Shi…
Dancing Women, Faces Hidden: Toyama’s Owara Kaze no Bon Festival
04.08.2018
Hundreds of women in uniform kimono dance through the night, ghost-like, faces hidden under folded straw hats, in a prayer to the wind to spare them this year during Toyama's Festival of the Dead.
Persimmons, Water & Walking Shrines: Kakinobatake Mizukake Festival
24.07.2018
A neighborhood festival to ward off the summer heat, the Mizukake Festival in Kanazawa's Kakinobatake district is a wet and wild water festival, incorporating taiko, sake, portable shrines and the area's local specialty, the persimmon. Joi…
Yosakoi: Experiencing Japan’s High Energy Festival Dance
13.07.2018
Sarah Morris – "I can’t recommend going to see yosakoi enough, especially the Kanazawa festival. Eat some festival food, have a blast, AND JOIN IN THE FESTIVITIES! There’s a giant dance at the end that everyone can join in together."