Getting Scorched at the Japanese Torch Festival 🔥
🔥 One of Japan’s top three fire festivals, Taimatsu Akashi in Sukagawa, Fukushima Prefecture is a raucous night of drum performances and massive flaming torches atop Mt. Goro.
Twenty smaller torches (well, eight metres tall) made by local junior high and high school students are lined up behind the ‘Dai-taimatsu’ or ‘Great Torch’, which stands ten metres tall, weighs three tonnes and is carried through the town by a legion of local residents.
The torches burn for about an hour, with students forming drum and chant squads to cheer on their torch while it burns. Spectators follow a set route around the torch grounds and can also make their own smaller torches, which they bring to Mt. Goro shortly before the main torches are lit.
Held every November, the festival traces its roots back to an attack by Date Masamune on Sukagawa Castle during the Sengoku period, when the townspeople gathered to protect the castle holding torches.
📍 Midorigaoka Park, Mt. Goro, Kuriyasawa, Sukagawa, Fukushima 962-0866
🚂 10min from Koriyama Station (so 1hr 25m from Tokyo Station)
If you’re interested in joining next year, learn more on the Fukushima Travel website or search ‘Taimatsu Akashi’ 🔥
#fukushima #visitfukushima #japantravel #japantrip #japan #explorejapan #matsuri #firefestival
🔥🔥🔥🔥
also a great place to meet firefighters