Kawagoe Aki Matsuri / Fall Festival 10/19/2014

Kawagoe is a city in the north of Tokyo in Saitama. From Shinjuku it takes about 50 minutes by train (Saikyo-sen) to get there. They call this city little Kyoto because it is built in a traditional way.

I finally found the time to go visit it. As I arrived at the station, it was full with people. I thought it might be because it's the last station of the train and because it's Sunday.
For my surprise the day I went there they were having a fall festival. The festival was held during the entire weekend.

There was a parade with traditional music and the people were wearing traditional clothes.

They had lots of foodstands and souvenir stands spread all over the city.

Since there were soo many people I didn't get to take a lot of pictures from the buildings.
Eighter way it's true that there were many old buildings and what I personally liked was to take a look at the traditional shops. There were many tea shops and also traditional japanese clothing stores. I had a lot of fun just checking them out.

traditional japanese tea pots

Fuji-san and Shibazakura Matsuri Mai 2014

After almost 1 year that I've been in Japan I finally went to see Mount Fuji (富士山). I went towards the end of May.

Once a year from the end of April till beginning of June, there is a Festivity called Shibazakura Matsuri.

Shibazakura is a type of "cherry blossom" that grows from the ground. It comes in different types of pinkish colors.

Unfortunately for us the wether wasn't on our favor. It was really gloomy and cloudy that day... From time to time it was also raining. At the beginning I feared that I wouldn't be able to see Fuji-san at all. Luckily he decided to show up sometimes.

In the Fuji-san area there are 5 different lakes. We went to one lake in the area Yamanashi, Fujikawakuchiko, Motosu lake.

To get there we went on the train and had to change several times. The last station was Kawaguchiko. From there we took the bus to go to Motosu. We bought in Shinjuku an all-day pass that was around 4000 Yen. It's really worth buying that pass. From Saitama or Tokyo it takes almost 2 hours to get there!

We also went to the Kawaguchiko lake before leaving.

... we had to hurry up since it seemed like a storm was coming...

I still got some really nice pictures despite the gloomy day...

All in one I loved it!!! The nature around Fuji is just magical. It was one of the best experience that I had since coming to Japan. It's definitely worth going near Fuji-san.

Let's get some foodporn here!!! They had all Sakura themed food there!! I ate Sakura Ramen!! Ouuu yes!!! That was some delicious ramen!!

Sweets paradise!!! Everything just looked sooo delicious!!

Sakura flavoured cake!!! I wish I could eat it again!!

Penis Festival in Kawasaki 2014年４月６日

Once a year near Tokyo in a town called Kawasaki which is about 20 minutes from Shinagawa, takes a weird festival place.
It's the so called Kanamara Matsuri or also known as the penis festival.

The event takes place at Kawasaki-Daishin. Right near a station there is a small temple. Unmissable since so many people are going. Not only japanese but also many foreigners.

The festival starts around 11 o'clock, but the actual parade only starts at 12 o'clock.

Around this temple there are many stands with food and drinks offered. Most of the foods are in a penis form. Ex. ice cream, lollipops, sausiges, ...

They also offer amusement activities.
There was a group of japanese women dancing and some wooden penis riding.

This little cute monkey was an attraction too. Honestly this only broke my heart seeing him like this!! ='( I don't think he actually wanted to be there. He looked quite confused and probably felt uncoｍfortable around so many people!!

Honestly I don't really know what to think about this event... It was really crowded and we were barely able to see anything. Once you saw it there was nothing holding you there anymore.
We didn't stay long there. We went through the sweets section and saw the beginning of the parade. That was enough for us and we left.
I was quite surprised at how many people actually went there. I imagined that there wouldn't be that many people, but it was really crowded.