Thursday, April 17, 2014

Thursday 17th April 2014- A short trip up the coast ended in a a festival

Today we decided to have a a short trip on the train up the coast and avoid having to use the car. So after an in room breakfast we took the tram to the station and purchased two ticket to a place called Himi which required a train change at Takaoka.
We arrived around 12.30 and walked along the sea front to see if their were any restaurants that we could use, as all signs were in the local lingo, but no luck at all.
The town is very quiet, or so we thought, but eventually we found  a 24 hour supermarket where we purchased some salad and sandwiches followed shortly by an ice cream and the lunch went down quite well. Whilst we were sitting roadside we espied and lady mid twenties trying to get directions from a local shopkeeper, there was a mixture of Japanese and English but anyway we said hello and it appeared she was Polish and travelling in japan and was in in Himi for the festival!!!, what festival we asked and she said a Hair festival?
It turned out to be the following festival
Marumage Matsuri まるまげ祭
(April 17) - A festival for young unmarried women to pray for a happy marriage. Every April around 40 young women from around Japan gather to dress up in geisha garb with a slight twist. The marumage coiffure was once a longstanding symbol of the married woman, and only married women were permitted to coif their hair that way. Geisha, in the hope they could one day wear it permanently, borrowed it for a single day to pray for happy marriages at the local shrine, and the tradition remains to this day. On the day of the festival girls spend hours getting dressed and primped, then parade through the street on the way to the shrine.”
So we found the festival and took some photos of the young girls in their kimonos and the the girls hair is like that of a Geisha Girl which can take hours to prepare.. This added a nice bit to this journey today.


We go back to Toyama and purchased some croissants for tomorrow mornings breakfast and took the tram back to the Hotel the long way round hoping to find a restaurant for tonight or it was a car drive out of the city to a KFC.
We came across an Italian Restaurant that was closed, but then most restaurants don’t open here until around six pm unlike Tokyo where they stay open all day. So later we went back and had a light but enjoyable and expensive meal but it was worth it for a change.
Just thought I would mention that the driving standard in this country is extremely high and makes the New Zealanders look like amateurs. No tailgaitiong or cutting you off , this place drivers have respect for each