Nada Kenka Matsuri – day 2! The fight is on!

15th October

Today we were lucky enough to go back to the same seats as yesterday. The morning started with a parade of the seven portable shrines before the fighting began! The fighting was amazing! Many men bought out three smaller portable shrines which were a lot older and less decorative than the previous seven. The shrines supported by bamboo poles and carried by men then began to fight! They would crash into each other and then sometimes fall over and large pieces would break off! It was crazy and no wonder that most years someone dies or gets seriously injured.

Tina, Marie, Spencer and I with Toru and Hitomi - the kind people who shared their seats with us!


Before the fighting began


The fight begins . . .


I was so glad I was viewing this from afar!


After the fighting was over all the shrines including the fighting ones made their way up the road to near the mountain. There they would fight again! On the way I saw some students from my Primary school and as we three of very few foreigners we were approached by many people – including the yellow community who decided that we should join them! It was so funny!

One of my students and his Dad!


Spot the odd ones out!


When we finally made it to the mountain the amount of people was amazing. We couldn’t find a spot anywhere and it looked really dangerous to stay down in the “arena”, so we found a spot on the mountain. We watched the shrines for a while but when we decided to leave there were still shrines in the “arena” and everyone was being pushed around. It was quite scary. We eventually saw a break and followed some Japanese people out of the “arena”! It was like the running of the bulls we were dodging people and just tried to get out of there as fast as we could!

The huge amount of people watching from the mountain


This is what we had to run through after it had cleared a little!


It was a fantastic festival and definitely gave you an adrenaline rush!! I won’t be forgetting it in a hurry!