00:00:00 John Daub: Hello everybody and welcome to Asakusa. This is the Sanja Matsuri. It is crazy here on the streets. You have the Tokyo Skytree up there and I'll be doing my very best to bring it to you in beautiful 720p at least for the next 15 minutes or so.

00:00:15 John Daub: I think it's good to get a taste of what this festival is like. There's a signal here. We've had some processions going by. You can see the police vehicles in the distance keeping the peace. This has a very well known reputation and I'm going to talk a little bit about that. The screen is freezing up a little bit here. Just to give you an overview of this festival, let me get a couple of assets here.

00:00:54 John Daub: If you just stay in one spot on the street, the omikoshi (portable shrines) will pass you, which is pretty incredible.

00:01:15 John Daub: So this is from my friends at TokyoCheapo.com. They run through this really quickly on their website, which is great. They keep this up to date. The Sanja Matsuri is known as one of the three great Shinto festivals in Tokyo with Kanda Matsuri and Sanno Matsuri [?]. It takes place every year, which is now. This is one of Tokyo's rowdier festivals. Some 2 million spectators typically turn up to watch the rather energetic, sometimes tattooed, gentlemen doing what can most accurately be described as mikoshi jousting.

00:01:45 John Daub: It's the Sunday, which is today, the most exciting and it's the longest. They started at 8am today. On Friday, there's a long procession and opening. You can see the colors of the festival on Friday and Saturday, but it's really Sunday I think is the big day. And if you wake up earlier, you get to see the people setting up for it. And that's when you get those shots with those tattooed gentlemen on there.

00:02:04 John Daub: Absolutely. I wanted to show you here. There's people coming back and forth here. How you doing? Leo and Kanae are with me here. Leo is sitting on my shoulders for the longest time. I don't know what's going on with the software here. I apologize. The streaming software is probably an issue. But I've been doing this, coming here for about 20 some years.

00:02:34 John Daub: Now the first, I think this is the first or the second night, a procession will come in. And I wanted to show you a little bit about the background of this first. If you come on different days, different times, you have a different experience. This is the procession coming into Asakusa Shrine. I believe this is the end of it. Maybe this is the end of the third day, which you're going to see in a few hours from now. If you go to Asakusa Shrine, or maybe it was the end of the first day. I can't quite recall because it was 10 years ago, but they bring in the omikoshi to put them away inside of Asakusa Shrine, not Sensoji Temple.

00:03:06 John Daub: The shrine is the Shinto part and the shrine is smaller. It's to the right side of Sensoji. If you're coming from Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate), the music is, they're there. There's usually a lot of people inside of Asakusa Shrine. It gets really festive. It's a nice feeling. You definitely feel like you're in a festival setting.

00:03:37 John Daub: And there's omikoshi coming by the way. So we're going to see that in a minute as this finishes up, but you can see it's just a lot of people. They say 2 million, but I don't think they actively count that. I think it's like more like three. It seems like since 2022, the numbers last year were pretty high. And I bet you this is going to be the highest of them all. We're exceeding tourism numbers, but I'm going to show you what it's like inside of Sensoji Temple as they go past.

00:04:02 John Daub: So in Sensoji Temple, as they go past the temple, it is pretty crazy. Here they are, they're putting it away. Now this video, sorry for quite close looking at the screen. This is the image of during the daytime of the second day, which was Saturday. You can see there's a lot of people here as well. It's pretty festive, but not quite like today.

00:04:27 John Daub: The jousting, where there's so many of these omikoshi going back and forth, seeing who's rowdier, who's crazier, who's more over the top. Sometimes you'll see those tattooed gentlemen on the top of the omikoshi dancing. And this is the site. Somehow I got up to the steps and you can see just it's packed all the way down to Kaminarimon, to the great chochin (lantern) there. It's pretty loud. A lot of people. This was 10 years ago too.

00:05:03 John Daub: I don't know how many people are here this year, but I can only imagine it's going to be as crazy this year. I've only just gotten here and this is as far as I've gotten this street I'm on right now because the rain is starting to come down. But 10 years ago, this is what it looked like. What you see is not a lot of smartphones as well. That's kind of interesting, historically, as the omikoshi makes its way around the neighborhoods.

00:05:27 John Daub: If you're in Tokyo at this time, this is the place to be at least for a little bit to check it out. A lot of spirit, a lot of energy behind this festival. This was taken with the GH4, the Panasonic camera way, way back when. I like that camera. Has a real cinematic feel to it, doesn't it? The omikoshi for your local area, if this is your local portable shrine, you probably have to carry it and it can get quite heavy quite quickly.

00:06:05 John Daub: There's a lot of backup too. So when you feel like you're going to pass out, someone else will come in and you can just go and get your stuff. So it's a lot of fun. I did it once like 25 years ago. I didn't know much about what I was doing. So I think, look at the little kid on top of the dad's shoulders. Our little girl there. But they're very heavy.

00:06:28 John Daub: All right, here comes another omikoshi procession here. Leo's already getting excited. Women can participate in this as well. There's nothing limiting anybody from participating in this one. They go up and down the streets, the neighborhoods. You don't have to be around Sensoji Temple. You can get around the entire area.

00:06:52 John Daub: Check it out. We have, is that oiran (courtesans)? Leo, look. This is like oiran, right? Oiran, right? I don't know. It's a maiko-chan (apprentice geisha). Maiko? Geisha-san. Geisha, right? Wow, amazing. Thank you. It's beautiful. There are five or seven people. I thought they were oiran, but they're geisha. Look at the way they walk with the inward toes. Beautiful.

00:07:54 John Daub: I thought they were oiran. It's hard to tell. But they're actual geisha. I think they're from maybe the, uh, well, she said they're geisha, but they look like they might be kabuki actors. Kabuki, right? It's hard to say. Nevertheless, sometimes they look like otokonoko (cross-dressing men), right? I thought they were guys. Yeah, they're like actors here. It's hard for me to tell. They're so well dressed. But I think they look like kabuki actors.

00:08:48 John Daub: You guys are seeing this live as the omikoshi is passing us here. All you gotta do is just stand here, and all of them will pass you. You don't actually have to follow them, but it's kinda neat to see them all come by. On the other side, there's one, I think, with kids. And getting a chance for the kids, there's Leo right here. Leo's enjoying himself.

00:10:12 John Daub: And they'll come from Asakusa Shrine, coming down this street into the neighborhoods. It's quite a long route. This is exactly where we are in the city of Tokyo. You can see Sensoji marked there. It's sort of in the north, not that far from the Skytree, as you can see, Kaminarimon, the big red chochin gate, Nakamise-dori (shopping street), the shopping street leading up to it, about 250 meters or so.

00:10:44 John Daub: And they make their way carrying that shrine all up that street. It was just probably crowded with people. And then they make a right or a left, depending on their neighborhood and their route. And they parade the omikoshi around the streets for kilometers. It's quite a ways. This whole place is packed. And I showed you what this looked like in the video from 10 years ago. I'll show that again because it's just impressive to see with the crowds.

00:11:12 John Daub: But I'm out here because I got a signal, first of all. And second, if you just stand here, people will just pass you. And you can feel the festival in one spot without having to move around. Maybe some secret information there. You don't have to walk around too much, in particular if you're walking around the main street here. This is right along Nakamise-dori. You can see where all the crowded people are in the center, where Asakusa Temple, the Sensoji Temple and Asakusa Shrine are in the back there.

00:11:49 John Daub: This is from 10 years ago. I really went out and staked out some spots. If you do come, bring a ladder. It does help to be above everybody. And make sure you know where you're going. You can get around okay, but you have to be positioned. Because once the crowds come in, it's really hard to get to another place.

00:12:04 John Daub: But from the steps of Sensoji Temple, you get a really nice view looking down across the entire Nakamise-dori Street and the inner hall of Sensoji Temple here. Look at this. Inner plaza, I guess you'd say. That's a lot of people. Again, they say 2 million. But I think it's closer to 3. It's hard to tell. Another procession is coming this way. So I'm going to turn this off again and bring you back to the live action as we get one more going by here.

00:12:51 John Daub: The streets of Asakusa are also really vibrant. I went to an intersection not far away from here. The intersection is the streets of Asakusa, as the locals call it. People correct me all the time. Just standing in an intersection and looking left, right, center. It's kind of cool. This is a reason just to walk around. This is why I tell people this is the best place to stay in Asakusa.

00:13:21 John Daub: Check it out. A kid's omikoshi going by. So kids get a chance to try it out. It's not too heavy and not too big. You do not have to be Japanese and you don't have to be from the local neighborhood. They're really accommodating. People are really friendly on this day and they like to have visitors for sure.

00:13:47 John Daub: I'm always encouraged to take part in the local festivals around Japan. One reason maybe because the population is also decreasing in Japan. So getting more people involved helps to preserve it for years to come. And that's one of the issues with the Japanese, especially outside of Tokyo. The festivals just have less and less people doing it. And some of them have become extremely expensive.

00:14:16 John Daub: You can see there's another omikoshi making its way towards us right now. This one looks like a kid's one as well. You can see the festival dress that they have. Some of them are more revealing. It just depends which omikoshi, which area you're representing. But we actually have really good weather for it. It's not too hot. It's an overcast day. And feels like the rain is coming every now and then.

00:15:25 John Daub: That's Leo saying, Ganbare (do your best). Boy, those kids are tough. They've got to carry that for a long way. He's got a big voice. Alright, there's another one coming I believe.

00:15:51 John Daub: Are you done? Yes, I'm done. Alright, they cleared the streets. Something's coming. I don't know why, but the streets have sort of suddenly cleared out. The police have cleared out the streets. That's in front of Kaminarimon, the big red lantern. Right there, this intersection. Probably you guys recognize it. But there's police buses.

00:16:33 John Daub: Leo has that Matchbox car, or Tomica car. And he's more impressed with that than the festival. He wanted to go inside one. Of course, you know, police aren't going to allow kids to go inside their buses. They usually will change and have water breaks inside those buses. Like mobile units, mobile offices, mobile police stations is what they are more or less.

00:17:07 John Daub: This is Leo dancing. It was hard to keep your... Well, he had his feet still, but right before this, he was dancing like crazy. So this is a great festival for kids as well, because they have the taiko (drum) drums, the music, the beats, the different colors. There's lots of street food here. So it's a fun event for the kids. I think it's a great family outing as well. There's lots of crowds, and it does help if you plan where you're going to be going.

00:17:40 John Daub: Down there where you can see one more. That guy with a case of chuhai (canned cocktail) on his shoulders. Looks like one of the big ones is coming. Is that why he cleared out? Oh, okay, one just came over here. You can see down the street. The omikoshi will just come out of an alley. Unless you know the route, and I don't know how they know the route. It's just chaotic. They'll just pop up behind you.

00:18:22 John Daub: There's some rain coming down. You see one person has an umbrella up. It's a fun festival. I'm here just for another 30 minutes, and then I'm going to go back home. But one of the good things about this festival, it brings out a lot of people, and you get to see a lot of sights. Like here's a dog walker with all their doggies. Sometimes they dress the dogs up in festival clothing. It's kind of cool to see. You see foreign tourists making friends with people visiting Japan as well. That's always kind of nice to see. As I said, local people are really friendly, in particular during the time of the festivals here.

00:19:20 John Daub: Here comes a taiko drum procession. I wonder if they stop for the red light. I think they're transferring it to another area. They have the top covered because the rain is going to start coming down. I guess they know something we don't know, but this guy does not look like the sun is going to come out anytime soon.

00:20:38 John Daub: All right, that's all I got for you. I just wanted to share a little bit of this festival today. It's a special day in Tokyo. This, what is it, the third weekend in May is something you should mark. If you just happen to be in Japan, this is one of the times to catch the festival because all the locals do come out. There's not as many foreign tourists here. I just wonder if some of them don't know that this is taking place. So there's the shout out for the rest of you. This will be going on until later tonight.

00:21:17 John Daub: Oh, hello. Oh, yeah, you found me. How you doing? I just froze here. How you doing? I'm doing great. I saw your stream, so. Yeah, you got me. All right, just signing off here. All right, everybody, mata ne (see you later).