Setsubun Festival

Simon here!


This last weekend was the Setsubun Festival! Basically, it's a festival to ward off the "Oni" or Japanese demon that comes around this time of year. On February 3rd, they light a gigantic bonfire at Yoshida shrine that burns all the way into the early morning. The bonfire is composed of thousands of charms and prayers that people add all into a pile. I met with a couple of my friends at 7pm and headed off to check it out. First things first, we dropped by the nearest Family Mart convenience store and bought some beer to start off the night. The thing about Japan is that you can walk around drinking in public as it's not illegal. However, Japanese people are taught when they are young that you're not supposed to walk and eat/drink at the same time so you're not going to see much people doing that at all. But the perk of being foreign is that you get some leeway with this.

Anyways, the first thing you'll notice when approaching the shrine is that there's a lot of people. Seriously, it seemed like half of Kyoto was walking around there that night. All along the path were walls of food stalls selling everything from your standard fare like Takoyaki (octopus wrapped in balls of fried batter) and Yakisoba (Japanese fried noodles) to more interesting things like Gyoza (Chinese dumplings) wrapped in fried chicken skin or an entire fish on a stick. Lots of food that you can only find at stalls during events like these. They even had pretty big American styled burgers (albeit pretty expensive) which my Japanese friend bought. One of the stereotypes Japanese people have is that in America, burgers are huge (which is true I guess) so they flock to places where they offer it as it can be difficult to find in Japan. Most food sizes in Japan are probably a lot smaller than you're used to back home but if you know where to look, you can get some decently sized portions for a fair price.

So we get near to the top of the shrine only to find that the bonfire doesn't get lit until 11pm. It was still 9pm at that point so we decided to head to an Izakaya (Japanese styled bar) nearby under recommendation from my Japanese friend. Had another round of beers and ordered some really awesome snacks. Very cool place to relax. So we stay there for an hour or so before heading out again to the bonfire. As we get there, I noticed that the food stall paths weren't as crowded as they were earlier. When we got to the stairs leading to the bonfire, I found out why. Nearly everyone went to see the fire. There was a huge line surrounding the fire but like usual in Japan, it was pretty organized. They corralled everyone around and kept the line moving so it didn't take too long to get close enough to have a good view of the fire. The fire itself looked like a massive burning meteor on the ground. The heat is so intense that you can feel it radiating it even if you're standing pretty far away from it. Definitely the highlight of the evening.

As we stand around marveling at the thing, we chatted up a bunch of other people and made some new friends. Afterwards, we ended up going as a huge group of 10 people to a nearby Karaoke place. In Japan, Karaoke is a very private affair where you rent a room for a couple of hours and have it all to yourself and your friends. It's not like the awkward public stage performances in other countries. There's nice leather seats and you can order drinks/food that they'll deliver to your room. So we stayed there for about 90 minutes and sang our hearts out. It was a blast!

We didn't end up leaving until around 2:30am in the morning. Buses stop at around 11pm and trains at midnight so there's no way to get home unless you either walk, bike, or take a taxi. Since my buddy was staying over at my place for the night and we took the bus here, we tried to just walk home. We stopped at a McDonalds along the way and just grabbed some 100 yen hamburgers to go. About halfway home, we decided it wasn't worth the walk so we gave up and flagged down a taxi. Taxis are relatively expensive so it's best not to take them unless you have to. At 3:30am, we finally arrive at home and went straight to sleep. I had school the next morning though so I only got 3 hours of sleep. But whatever, it was worth it!