Hey good afternoon all you beautiful people out there, it's Cory.
I'm here in the Asakusa area. It is Saturday and there's an awesome festival going on right now.
The footage you'll see today in this video is going to be a compilation from today and tomorrow.
So let's go check out what's going on!
So everyone's carrying these little shrines around on their shoulders called "O-mikoshi." (mikoshi is OK too)
There's a whole bunch of them going around all kinds of the side streets and stuff.
It's a tight fit.
They have to maneuver through these narrow alleys.
Can they get it? Can they get it? They can do it!
They do it every year.
Nice!
So what exactly is Sanja Matsuri?
It's a 3-day festival dating back to the 7th century, which celebrates the spirits of the 3 founders of Sensoji Temple,
which is the oldest temple in Tokyo.
There is a large parade held on the first day, which I unfortunately couldn't go to.
On the second day, around 100 mikoshi representing the 44 districts of Asakusa are paraded around to visit the shrine and
receive a Shinto blessing and purification, which will bring good luck for the coming year.
On the last day, there are 3 black mikoshi owned by Sensoji Temple that parade around all 44 districts of Asakusa.
In the evening, they return to the temple in one of the biggest events of the entire festival.
Besides these main events, there are musical and dancing performances,
hundreds of shops sellings snacks and other goods,
as well as a huge area selling iconic Japanese festival foods.
Alright, I found all the street food, all around here.
You know it's time to eat!
I've got this candy treat here, inside is a pickled plum.
I know you can get mikan (kind of like a tangerine),
and strawberry, and I think there are some other flavors.
But I chose the one that's not really sweet.
This is kind of pickled sour. It uses this little waffle basket thing.
Same thing as like an ice cream cone.
But you hold it with that.
Alright, this thing is oozing.... let's try it out.
It's like corn syrup candy.
It's still melting all over the place. Can you see it?
It's all stringing out.
It's really nice. It goes well with this pickled plum, I love it.
Alright, let's see what else they have.
Ok guys, this is a little bit awkward because I have the camera on the ground looking up at me.
I can't really find a spot to sit.
And I tried tying my Joby tripod to a tree, but it didn't really work.
So I'm looking down at you guys.
Not literally, well... I mean... literally but not figuratively.
Anyways, we've got some Ayu no Shioyaki,
and this is essentially grilled sweetfish with salt on it.
Let's go ahead and just go for it.
Oh man, yum!
It's the whole fish, it's the guts and all.
They didn't gut the fish or anything. (They did scale the fish.)
It's been grilled over some charcoal.
You can just eat it like this.
I'm so glad I found this, I was looking for something savory, and I found it.
I'm trying not to eat the guts. So I have to eat around it.
Salt is just flaking off.
Alright, I'm going to go ahead and finish this, and we'll try to see what other food we can find after this.
Mayonnaise? -Hai. (yes)
Arigatou gozaimasu (Thank you very much)
Ok, we've got some great Takoyaki here, there are 6 pieces for 600 Yen.
It's essentially 100 Yen each.
And they're HUGE.
And this is the first time I've seen this in a long time, where they use really large pieces of
of tako, the octopus, inside the ball.
Let's try to pick one up here, they're really fresh,
so the batter is still very gooey, which is awesome.
Alright, here we go. Itadakimasu (I will enjoy it)
That one didn't have any octopus in it but I'm going to go ahead and just eat the leg itself here like this.
Oh my god, it's like a monster piece of octopus guys.
Festival food in Japan, guys, it's the bomb!
So at the temple, you can go ahead and pray. You put some money in the box, and you can pray for anything you wish.
You know... good health, prosperity, finding a new job, passing your exams, etc.
And then you can also go to a little shop that's inside the temple itself,
and buy a little charm. So there are these little lucky charms that you can buy.
I bought one for good health.
This here is called "Mikuji" and there's these drawers filled with different fortunes.
Here we go, we're going to put 100 Yen in there.
Then we have this cannister with a little hole here.
Just kind of shake it up, roll it around.
There's one, right there.
Let's pull it out.
So my number is 42. Look around here.
42.
There is it. So we've located it. Put this back in.
42.
Open the drawer, take out the paper.
So I got 42, and on here it says: "Regular fortune."
"When spring comes, Katsuda tree flowers are in full bloom, smelling so well."
"Your fortune will open wide when your season comes. If you get the chance open, you will get fame and honor, climbing the way to the top of the sky."
"Also, you meet a great person of honor who helps you."
Wow, that sounds nice!
"The moon in the dark sky will get bright again, in the clear sky you can meet the fortune soon."
I like that! It's really good.
This is a very positive thing here. I'm going to fold it up and keep it in my wallet so it's on me at all times.
Ok guys, I'm going to call it a day. So let's fast forward to tomorrow!
Ok guys, welcome back. It is now day 3 of the Sanja festival.
This is the last day, it is Sunday. This is the big finale.
There are the 3 main mikoshi, 3 of them, that started at 6am. They essentially split up and they've been parading
all around Asakusa area from 6am until 6pm.
And that's what they're doing. And it's almost 6pm,
and they're all going to start coming back and converge back here at Sensoji Temple area.
Right by Kaminarimon, the "Thunder Gate"
The big famous red lantern.
So you can see here behind me, it's just pedestrian foot traffic only.
There's a lot of people here right now, the weather is beautiful, let's look around until those 3 shrines come back.
Ok guys, I hope you enjoyed this video about the Sanja Festival here in Asakusa.
It was a great time for me, I have been to this temple before a few times, but I never
experienced the festival itself.
To celebrate the end of this video, we've got some Karaage chicken, and nice Nama (draft) beer, some cold Sapporo beer.
And let's go ahead and take a sip of this.
Aaahhhhhhhh
Nice cold draft beer.
And we've got this stick of the holy goodness.
The Karaage chicken.
This is a small order, but there's like... look at it.
It's as big as my face! I always compare food with my face size.
Hot and crispy, right out of the fryer.
Mmmmm
It came off the stick.
There we go, re-skewered it.
So... oh man, this is really good!
Perfectly breaded.
Fried just nicely. It's like crispy but the batter still not hard as hell.
And on the inside, the chicken is super moist and tender.
Very hot.
Oooh
Alright, I'm going to go ahead and finish this chicken guys.
And my beer. And then go home.
If you want to see the full description of what this festival actually is, check out the description box down below.
You guys know what to do, thumbs up the video if you really liked what you saw.
And Subscribe to the channel, it definitely helps me out with what I'm doing here.
And I will see you guys in the next video, Otsukaresama! (means "Good job" usually said after a day of work)
Arigatou gozaimasu!
Ok, P.S. I just got this nice paper fan, it says "Sanja" (which means 3 shrines,
for the matsuri (festival), Sanja Matsuri.
From the guy over here. He saw me filming and he was like "Here, have this fan."
So yeah, nice fan. I'm definitely going to use this all summer long.
Because it's going to be a hot one for sure!
Sanjaaaaa!
Alright guys, for reals, for reals, cheers! Kanpai!
See y'all later.