Osaka Tenjin Matsuri Festival 2015 天神祭

[Day 25, part 2 - the grand finale]

Here comes the finale of the Festival of the Gods - Tenjin Matsuri 天神祭 - in Osaka city in July 2015. I dedicated this post to the finale of the festival that was happening in the evening and the night of 25th July and tried not only to gather the photographs (mostly mine) but also the videos. I believe without the videos in this case it would not be the same as just looking at the photographs since the videos demonstrate you pretty good the atmosphere and something I particularly liked here - the interaction with clapping the hands. Now let me guide you through this amazing evening and what can you expect there. I had the chance and the honor (as well as my friends from the camp) to have a ride on the ferry through the city on Okawa river including dinner and enjoying the fantastic fireworks. Thanks again to Lions Club who made it possible.

Alright! If you missed the part 1 we came this morning from Inunakiyama hotel back to Osaka and headed through the city before the noon to watch some ritual of the dancers and various kinds of performance somewhere in the city. Afterwards we headed back for the lunch at the hotel and then got prepared for the tea ceremony. Each of us was given a kimono - one yukata with geta (footwear), not just to use it for this day as citizens are supposed or are free to wear kimono in the streets but also as a present we took home (and mine is hanging on the wall ready for the next opportunity... I used it only at the Festival of Japanese culture in Zagreb, which is another story to be told). After having an introduction to the tea ceremony we were split into two groups and then went through the ceremony wearing the kimono. After this experience was done we now only had to move into the city and join the show.

From the hotel to the ferries

We might have left the hotel about 4 p. m. wearing our kimonos. Despite the majority who had worn nothing else beneath the yukatas (except for the underwear) there were four of us "cheaters" who put the shorts too. There was no chance I would leave the hotel room without my analog camera, my digital camera and the smartphone as all of this was to be documented. I also took my yellow straw hat that was for me as same as the hat of Indiana Jones for him - nowhere without it.

We started walking through the same street in only one direction, unfortunately cannot remember where exactly it was, and it took us around 10 minutes to reach the bridge of the river. On our way there we were given a Japanese hand fan which proved to work pretty good. They were a bit bigger and in one piece and produced "strong wind" when using it. Actually, during the festival you can find at many corners of the streets in Osaka people giving them away to the pedestrians for free!

I took one of these and put all of it into my yukata and now walked fully equipped with everything. While some of my friends were also walking around in wooden geta I decided it would be better to leave them back in the hotel as I did not want anything bad to happen and that they arrive to Croatia safely and with no damage. After feeling a bit strange walking with shorts and shoes in combination with yukata and straw hat (what a combination! ) this feeling disappeared soon.

The streets were getting full of visitors as we were approaching the bridge. And the river here was pretty big making lots of space between the two sides of the city. Since I come from the place where we do not have such a type of the urban landscape it all looked pretty fascinating. We had to go to the other side and I was just turning around to check the skyscrapers and what was going on along the river.

While writing this I found the location (the street's name is Matsuya-machi-suji) and the prospect of the festival so have a look, please, at the map below. Our hotel was approximately down there where the red spot is and walked over the bridge to the ferries. Below the google maps you can find the prospect we were given there, unfortunately only in Japanese. By the way, I did not know back there that Osaka castle was relatively close to us! It is this big green & blue area to the right of the hotel dot. Well, next time we check that too.

While on the bridge there were almost no cars as the place was practically closed for the vehicles that day. There were hundreds of people crossing the sides of the bridge both in kimonos or without. I stopped a few times to take the photos and had to be careful not to lose my group. I remember more the scene to my right (the north-western direction) where one can clearly see the parks on the both sides of the river and the river bank which was soon and throughout the evening going to be filled with thousands of citizens following the ferry rides.

The next thing I noticed were the bridges. I already knew Osaka must have had numerous bridges as it is so big and along the water but here they appear every half a kilometre or less! And try to imagine how many of them are out there! Behind the bridges comes the urban landscape or the cityscape here. I guess most of the you if you ever go there will remember pretty well the blue skyscraper. Another thing I have to comment is the river or the water colour. In Croatia I remember seeing only blue-green or mud-looking rivers... here the whole scenery was pretty blue during the sunny day. Perhaps as it was close to the place where the river merges with the sea... otherwise I believe you would also say this on the picture was rather a sea.

My apologies for this pictures, I know it is pain for your eyes (and it hurts me more since I did the stupid mistake) but this was at the beginning of the bridge, still at an early stage of the festival. We went down on the left side.

Some smaller ferries and the last part of the green island. You can notice lots of dense greenery of the parks and "forests" all the way along the river.

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As we approached the other side I turned then to the left (to the west) and this is what we saw. There were several ferries with places for about one hundred people I believe. There was some island in the middle of the river (left corner of the photo) and full of greenery. The ferries were still empty as the the beginning of the ride was scheduled at 5 p. m. You can also notice the bigger promenade on the northern side of the river which soon became overrun by thousands of visitors.

We found the stairs close by and went down. We had to about 15 minutes more before being allowed to board the ferry. It became pretty crowded soon as the first ferry was being loaded. Apparently the second one next to it was ours. Then they told us we were going on the boat and to be careful not to fall into Okawa. If you are wearing geta instead of shoes or sandals you should really be careful as it is not difficult to fall or get stuck somewhere with them.

We cross the first ferry and voila - found our place on the second one. While boarding two ferries from the other side (from the green island) were leaving the area and those were filled with performers playing music and dancing.

We settled in the bottom end of the ferry (the whole Lions Camp with us) and had several tables reserved. As you can see I was at the right side of the ferry with my friends. Our camp leaders came then to each table and gave us dinner packed in the boxes. There is a photo of the content too. And not just that! They brought more boxes with several sorts of drinks in cans and ice cream for each of us. I waited a bit with dinner as I ate more than I do usually for lunch back at the hotel but then could not resist anymore. We still had a few more minutes before our ferry starts its journey... and we start the journey and our peak of the stay in Japan.

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Each ferry had one speaker on the other side of the ferry (at its beginning) who was commenting and shouting during the whole evening in Japanese. Each of these was also leading the clapping part. He mentioned us among the other guests and also invited a few of our campers to have a word in front of the others. You can also see a doll behind.

Just like the others our ferry also had tens of columns with red and white stripes and the lanterns or lamps in the shapes of the oval white balloons with red or black signs on it.

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Another view from the other table. You can notice the other ferry being fully loaded with visitors and going for the ride. We all greeted each other and soon our turn came to shine.

The ferry ride through Osaka

The day was slowly turning into evening and you could tell it by the change of the colours on the buildings. As we were now ready to go the sun was pretty low. And within an hour it was already dark and night. The sky and the landscape within the next hour was really beautiful with the transition between the blue and pink then purple and the dark blue (blackish) in the end. And do not forget the fireworks.

Some of the lanterns already started working and you can notice the visitors of the festival on the bridge. This was pretty much on every bridge. And the best thing is people were waving at each other. Thus we also when approaching the river bank or the bridge we used to get up and start waving back to them. I especially enjoyed going under the bridge full of people as the interaction was much bigger and together with one of my best friends there we used joke a lot, point into some specific people up there, jump to get their attention and wave or send "kisses" (sometimes ending up at some guys or grandmothers unfortunately).

This is what I am talking about. Along the whole way with our ferry on each side of the river bank one could notice thousands of people waiting there. Most of the visitors apparently come right about the start time of the ferry ride though there are some who come earlier to find the perfect spots to enjoy the fireworks later. I noticed many groups were also lying on the blankets so it all looked like a picnic too! The best part is of course when they wave back to you and we back to them plus the clapping. Wait a bit more for it.

These scenes of the bridges with people are a thing you are never going to forget. It just shows how popular and important this festival is for the locals as I barely found an empty spot on any of the objects across the river allowed for the pedestrians.

Another thing worth mentioning are the ferries carrying the bonfire. There were several of them going on our route in both directions and it looked totally amazing. Sometimes there were boats or ferries that besides the bonfire also had a large amount of performers and the taiko drum players which indeed created a spectacle. There were even larger bonfires than the one you see here. The sky was now getting this pink colour and shortly after this bonfire the show with the fireworks started!

Now did you really think I was not going to add here the Lord of the Rings? Once the fire started burning I could not help myself but shout on our ferry "The beacons! The beacons are lit! Gondor calls for aid! ".

This image just stay in my head when mentioning evening in Osaka. I have never experienced something like this in Croatia so I might add a bit more of subjective thoughts and views here but I guess you all agree about the scenery.

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The fireworks

After the bonfire ferry we were passing under the next bridge. Since it was pretty low I could not help myself but to stretch a bit and touch its bottom. And there were 2 more bridges where one on the ferry was able to simply touch the construction (and we were not moving that fast actually, rather slow). And then the magic with the fireworks across the whole river on both sides started!

Because I have got not many photographs with the fireworks during the evening (and some are pretty blurry) I had decided back there that it would be the best to record a video. If you are interested to see what it looked like please check my video compilation of the whole Tenjin Matsuri (the finale in the evening) here. The fireworks starts about 0:30 and the music you hear in the first 30 seconds is from the part 1 (the square-layout area before lunch). I hope you find it interesting!

You can see this ferry with the large number of the lanterns in the video too. The whole experience was pretty amazing. I think I should also now comment.

Clapping

I found the clapping with our hands to be one of the key points of the festival. And certainly one more thing you are not going to forget. I must admit I totally liked this part and was among the first to jump around. The speaker of the ferry would start shouting something and we would follow his every sentences with clapping. I was not able to recognise the words but my friend told me the expressions which I am going to write you here. My friend also added that the expressions come from Kabuki dance so everything is somehow connected.

The thing is quiet simple - every time our ferry got close to another one or to the river bank with the other visitors we would then stop for about half a minute, turn to each other (towards the other visitors) and then started this "ritual".

It was either our speaker (or the front man of the ferry) or their who would lead the process. If it was between us and the visitors on the shore then our speaker would always lead the game. So here is what it looks like:

1. Two approaching ferries stop next to each other. Everyone on the both ferries gets up and prepares to clap.
2. One of the speakers lets the other one lead the fun though both instruct then the passengers.
3. There are three expressions followed by the clapping on the both ferries at the same time, synchronized. These are

   Uchimasho! > 2x clap

   Mohitotsuse! > 2x clap

   Ioutesando! > 2x clap, little break and 1x clap

   The words could be translated a "Clap your hands, one more time, three times to celebrate" as I heard.

4. Afterwards everyone claps as long as they want and the speakers on each side thank everyone and you will hear 1-2 times "Arigatou gozaimaaaaasu"

My favourite part of the evening on the ferry. Try to imagine the whole shore and the bridges around doing the same, thousands of people doing the same thing synchronised! This just shows how much the interaction is important in the festival and that the big cities do not need to be strictly cold. Click here to watch again the video and I recorded once the whole part without cuts, you can find it at the last 20 seconds of the video.

The whole ride was maybe about 3-4 hours long and at one point we turned back. There was no more light and was now far from the centre of the action. In the last half an hour of the ride there were not many people up on the bridges anymore.

However we still enjoyed the company of the visitors on the river bank and waved to them. Speaking of clapping we must have done that 20-30 times at least...it seemed like stopping every 5 minutes or less when some other ferry passed by. The funniest was 2-3 times in row, turning from the left side to the right side and repeating the steps.

The whole city looks still marvellous during the night with thousands of lights and the fireworks was still going on. We tried to use the opportunity to eat and drink everything there plus take lots of photographs of course!

Our 2-3 campers were also invited to have a speech next to the speaker in the front of the all passengers aboard the ferry.

In the last hour all of us were going around the other table to hang out with the rest of the campers and enjoy the night. As you can expect some were crying but we still had half of the next day to spend together. Along with my Turkish friend we were still stubborn and persistent with greeting the visitors on the bridges and the shore by jumping around and pointing into specific people to get their attention.

In the end I felt a bit tired. I forgot to mention that the LC gave us a big bag once we boarded the ferry not just with the dinner box but also some other presents such as colourful scarves, some books and similar. I did not want to open any of it until I got to the hotel.

Around 9 p. m. our ferry came back to the very same place our adventures started 4 hours ago. We left it for the shore hoping not leaving anything behind us.

It took us about 10-15 minutes until we reached our hotel. The bridge was now much more crowded than before as people from several other ferries were also crossing onto the other side... and we had to be careful not to split into several groups and lose each other.

Back in the hotel and the plans for the other day

While being in the lobby room we found out one more local friend had to leave us as she had exams the other day so we quickly had "big hug" time. Most of us went into our own rooms. I was talking to the others as well a bit and used the chance to take photographs both from my window and from room of my friends on the other side. This included a bit of creativity and also hoped for the best with my analog camera trying to remember the settings for the night scene.

The last two were views form my window. Actually, beneath the window on my side was kind of smaller platform or terrace with plants so I put my camera there on the automatic blink. Still did not succeed as I wished but at least you get the idea of the night scenery.

I also used the opportunity to give away a few more of the Licitar hearts (the symbol of Zagreb and the Northern Croatia) that were left in the bag. And one of camp assistants came to each room and gave us a special present of the Lions Club - a very interesting and high quality book from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Center and two maps of the place. I was very thankful and the book was being read by almost all of my family later in summer.

I was packing my stuff for the other day or rather had a headache with tons of it. Since tomorrow was the last day we were going to have the farewell party for lunch and before that some agricultural activity.

In conclusion

Tenjin Festival was indeed one of the most amazing experiences of my life and I am happy having a chance being a part of it. This festival truly deserved to be one of the top 3, the biggest and the most visited in Japan. Thousands of visitors in interaction with each other, clapping, fireworks, plenty of parades and performers on both land and the river with bonfire and fireworks really turn the whole evening into something magical. If you are planning to visit Japan at the end of July be sure not to miss this big festival in Osaka!

I hope you found this interesting and thanks for reading!