White Day and the Fertility Festival

On March 14th, Japan celebrates a counterpart to Valentine's Day called White Day. On this day, men are supposed to get women gifts and chocolates, while on Valentine's Day, women get the men chocolate. It's been a couple years, and I forgot which day is which, so I got Chad some sweets instead (he better just remember that on Valentine's Day!).

Above, Chad is opening some assorted chocolates. I also got him some bear-shaped cookies (pictured on the right). There are some awesome phrases on the cookie box, including the following:

"Did you see the bears in line? Did you watch the bears changed to the sweets? The kind of thing may only happen in the wonderland."

"Guys in their best dress get together in the b.b. CAFE."

"b.b. CAFE Munch, munch. Deliciousness continues forever once you start to taste the sweetness, you can't stop it. You continue to taste them until you make a jar empty."

Totally unrelated to White Day comes another annual event in Japan. Today, March 15, a fertility festival took place outside of Nagoya near the Tagata Jinja (shrine). It's called the Hounen Matsuri (hounen meaning rich harvest, and matsuri meaning festival), and there is a large parade in which a very large wooden phallus is carried around. There are similarly shaped objects EVERYWHERE just for the festival, whether they be for decoration, or sold at little stalls set up. Some of the items available for purchase included candy, keychains, wood carvings, and so forth. Also available (and in normal food-shapes) was some traditional and delicious Japanese food.

Please be careful scrolling down, as some of the pictures are rather explicit (we decided to post some pictures for you to view at your own discretion, keeping in mind that this is a public festival, and parents even bring their children. You may not want your children to see, however, so be warned!).

Tagata Jinja

There were so many people, including loads of foreigners. Apparently, for some reason, the festival is one of the most popular festivals for large crowds of gaikokujin.

Above is an example of some of the festival-oriented food. We tried one of the green bananas, and it was quite delicious, actually.

The procession began with many things, including the scenes captured above. The woman in the picture was engouraging people in the crowd to touch her...prop. Also in the parade were participants handing out cups of sake.

The parade continued with people marching by, some of which were holding a very interesting flag:





Soon enough, we witnessed the the main event:







There's not much that can really be said for that.


...

Later in the afternoon, a crowd gathered around as participants in the ceremony threw large, hard mochi (rice cakes) from a balcony. If you catch some of the mochi, it is good luck, but I would say surviving the event is good luck in itself! Chad and our friend Mike caught several.

(Note: although Chad looks like he's eating one of his prizes, they are not delicious. Normally, mochi is very soft and sweet, and much smaller.)

Upon leaving, we saw the above pictured street performer, making the mannequin dance to some traditional music.

Please keep in mind that this festival is kind of strange even for some Japanese. For more information, you can check out the following links:

http://photoguide.jp/pix/thumbnails.php?album=529
http://www.yamasa.org/japan/english/destinations/aichi/tagata_jinja.html