Famous Winter Festivals to Travel in Japan
If you are a Japanese tourist, make sure that winter is the season that you should plan to visit there. Japanese winter lasts from December until February. The weather is cool with white snow everywhere to attract many excellent tourist events. AMC Travel would like to introduce you the famous winter festivals there and feel free to join in its events organised regularly in the country.
1. Chichibu Yomatsuri Festival
Chichibu Yomatsuri (Chichibu Night Festival) is famous as one of the three most popular floating festivals in Japan. This festival is held on December 2 and 3 every year in Chichibu City, Saitama. On the last day of the festival will be decorated with 6 lanterns, each weighing 10 tons is marched through the town. Brilliant fireworks and lanterns everywhere create a warm, happy atmosphere of the festival.
The festival takes place from February 18 until March 4 every year at Minato Koen, Chuo Koen, Hamaichi Kanko, Nagasaki Shinchi town and other places in Nagasaki.
Nagasaki lantern festival is usually held over a 15-day period with the purpose of celebrating the Lunar New Year in Nagasaki’s Chinese town and it becomes the biggest festival of Nagasaki city. During the festival days, you will 15,000 lanterns hanging all over the city.
The festival takes place on January 7 every year at Tamataregu Daizen-ji Temple, Kurume City, Fukuoka. With a history of over 1900 years, the Oniyo Fire Festival is one of the three largest fire festivals in Japan. The main activity of the festival is the Shinto ritual performed to ward off evil spirits. This is also an event where participants pray for a good harvest, and their families’ safety.
4. Mito Apricot Flower Festival
Mito apricot flower festival is held from February 20 to March 31 each year at Kairakuen, Mito City, Ibaraki. In the Japanese tradition, apricot tree’s flowers are also loved like the famous cherry blossoms. Known as one of the most beautiful gardens in Japan, Kairakuen garden is planting 3,000 stunning apricots with over 100 different varieties, visitors can enjoy countless pink and white flowers in this garden.
One of the largest winter events in Japan is the Sapporo snow festival that attracts no less than 2 million visitors from all over the world to admire hundreds of spectacular snow statues and stone sculptures there. The festival lasts from 6 to 12 February at Sapporo Sato, Sapporo Odori Koen, Susukino. Many countries in the world (although not having snow like Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines …) all go to Sapporo Snow Festival to sculpt their ice works.
As you can see, all four seasons in Phu Tang land are beautiful and many festivals attract tourists. If you are planning to visit the cherry blossom country, do not forget to plan your journey.
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