5 Festivals in 8 Days - #5 Goshogawara Tachineputa

It's day eight and I'm off to my fifth festival, Goshogawara Tachineputa! Amazing TALL float parade! This was definitely one of my top three favorite festivals! (Top two are Akita Kanto and Aomori Nebuta)

Festival History:
Tachi means "standing" so this is the festival of Standing Neputa. The floats stand at an average of 23 meters (75 feet) in height and weigh 19 tons each! The fifteen floats' designs are usually related to deities, demons or characters from Japanese folklore. These huge floats are all maneuvered through the streets by teams of people pushing and pulling. Drummers and dancers shouting "Yattemare! Yattemare!" accompany the neputas.

The oldest known written record about tall neputas is dated 1907 and notes that great land owners of the time competed against each other to create the highest neputa. Neputas were said to be visible from neighboring towns and were said to be 20 meters tall. Unfortunately, the neputas were forgotten after two large town fires destroyed all plans and schematics. In 1993, some of the lost schematics and photos were discovered and the tachineputas were revived! The first Tachineputa Festival was held in 1998. 

Tachineputa is held each year August 4 - 8, the parade starts at 7pm. We took the easy route for this festival by taking the ITT tour from base, which included transportation and reserved seating at the parade. To drive it ourselves would have been about 100 km (62 mi) and 1 1/2 - 2 hours using toll roads. Tolls are approximately ¥1,700 each way.

We arrived early enough to have time before the main event to check out a couple of the floats in their storage locations and get some food and drinks. There's a Tachineputa Museum but we didn't check it out since we were here to see them in the parade.

Bean and I are becoming friends!

Scallops! Yum! There was a little set back on their appeal
after I decided to bite into the orange part to see what the
inside looked like...don't do it. Haha

Grilling scallops.

Rice balls, scallops, prawns and corn.

Yakisoba, my favorite!

The forecast called for rain so we came prepared with rain jackets, quick dry pants and an umbrella. As we approached the start time of the festival the sunset was beautiful and the weather stayed perfect! These floats coming down the street and being maneuvered were an amazing site to see! Beautifully designed and gigantic!

Apple pastries made with famous
Aomori Prefecture apples. Yum!

The Herg's! 

Below is a short video clip of the festival:

For size reference, those are people
playing the drums and they're adults.

One of the shorter floats.

One of the floats was stored in a building near our seats so we took the opportunity to grab some photos at the end. I was given a lesson on playing cymbals...my instructor was very enthusiastic!

Up next: Festival of 10,000 Lights at Seiryuji Temple (Aomori Big Buddha)