Sengen Taisha Shrine Autumn Festival

On Friday (Culture Day), I took the train to Fujinomiya for the Sengen Taisha Shrine Autumn Festival. 

In Japan, every area has a famous food and when people travel, it is important to eat the famous food. Normally, I'm not so interested in the famous food of an area. A famous Fujinomiya food is Fujinomiya yakisoba and I really like it.  I think it is chewier than other yakisoba. Since it was lunch time when I arrived, I ate Fujinomia Yakisoba at an outdoor eating area.

I last attended this festival in 2018. I wanted to attend again, but in November 2019, I was in Europe, then there was the pandemic, so here we are in 2023. 

One of the interesting things at this festival is the parade of large wooden carts with musicians, that are pulled by people in traditional clothing.

All around the shrine area are food and other types of booths. A few days ago, Mt. Fuji had more snow, but it was rather bare on Friday.

Even with the crowds and fun of the festival, there are still some calm quiet places on the grounds of the shrine.

This is the entrance of the shrine.

Inside the gates.

I stopped a few minutes to watch someone breaking boards with his hands and feet.

This game is very popular at Japanese festivals.  There are a lot of little fish swimming around in a big tank thing and people try to catch them with a small net with a giant hole. It seems impossible but people do catch and go home with the little fish.

Even though it is November, it was a warm day.

I can pass by most of the festival "foods", but I do like this - fried spaghetti noodles with season salt.

The shrine and the Mt. Fuji Center bring many tourists to this area, so the English signage is helpful.

I enjoyed my time at the festival - a bit of Japanese culture on Culture Day.