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​On November 23rd, I went to Yatsushiro City for their annual Myoken Festival (妙見祭).  This large festival is one of the three great festivals in Kyushu.  In fact, it's designated as an intangible folklore cultural asset by Kumamoto Prefecture.  The festival was started almost 400 years ago in 1636.

If you know me at all, then you know I love holidays.  Well, one of the most important holidays in Japan is coming up, and that's New Year's, or Shōgatsu (正月).  So I've been doing a lot of research on how to celebrate the New Year in Japan.  I will not really talk about the history or get into too much detail explaining what things are.  This is more a practical guide on what to do and when.

Every year on August 15th and 16th is the Yamaga Lantern Festival, or Yamaga Toro Matsuri (​山鹿吐露祭).  The origin of the festival comes from an ancient story in Yamaga when the legendary Emperor Keiko (71 to 130 CE) became lost in the middle of a fog.  The villagers of Yamaga led the Emperor and his followers out of the forest by holding pine torches.

The highlight of the festival is the thousand lantern dance. Hundreds of women in yukata wear lanterns on their heads and dance in a circle.  Before the festival, large paper models of famous Japanese buildings are displayed around the town.  And at the end of the festival, both the paper lanterns and models are presented to Omiya Shrine.

Throughout the event, you can see many performers dancing to Yoheho-bush, a traditional song from Yamaga.  There is also a fireworks display, an impressive number of food and game booths, and various other attractions. 

So, on to the pictures!

Paper Models

For the festival, they spread out the paper models of buildings throughout Yamaga.  And I really do mean throughout Yamaga.  To go from the furthest two points is about an hour walking.  And they had a contest where you had to get stamps at the different stops.  If you got a certain number of stamps, you were entered to win a prize.  Of course, I entered myself and got 21 out of 30 stamps.  It took many hours to get them!  So here are some pictures of some of those paper models.