For details, contact Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine (Tel: 0467-22-0315)

For more information, please visit:
http://www.city.kamakura.kanagawa.jp/english/index.html (English)
http://www.hachimangu.or.jp/about/matsuri/index.html (Japanese)

Gora Summer Festival Daimonji Yaki

Date: August 16 (Mon)
Location: Gora area, Hakone-Town

This traditional event has been held in Hakone since 1921. It is the largest summer event in the Gora Onsen area, one of Hakone’s seventeen hot springs. Mt. Myojogatake is one of the mountains along the Hakone caldera. A fire festival is held in which fires are lit from 7:30 p.m. on this 924 meter tall mountain, and gorgeous fireworks are set off against a backdrop of a burning character that reads “dai” (large).

For more information, please visit:
http://www.hakone.or.jp/english/index.html (English)

This traditional event in Kamakura is held every year in August on the third day before the beginning of autumn (or on the fourth day before the start of autumn, depending on the year). A Nagoshi Festival to mark the passing of summer will be held on the 6th. After a Shinto ritual to cleanse visitors of the impurities of summer, they will step through a grass ring called a chinowa to pray for their health. Then, shrine maidens will perform a Nagoshi dance at the Maiden stage. On the 7th, a festival will be held in honor of the first day of autumn where thanks are given for a safe summer, and the arrival of a bountiful autumn will be announced to the gods. On the 9th is the Sanetomo Festival, held in honor of Minamoto no Sanetomo’s birthday. Minamoto no Sanetomo will be commemorated and haiku and tanka poetry gatherings will be held in honor of his mastery of art and literature.

This event, held in the Hakone Gora area, was held to bring comfort to summer visitors and honor ancestors along with the ceremonial bonfires of the Bon Festival. It has been held for approximately ninety years.
Bamboo are harvested and dried in the blazing sun starting two months before the event. Then, 350 bundles with diameters of thirty centimeters are made. The first horizontal stroke of the character is 108 meters long. The border of the character is made in two layers with intervals of 1.5 meters, and is lit according to the timing of the fireworks. The character is made up of lines, and the lines are made up of individual points. As a result, the character seems to float against the surface of the mountain.

Images from the event:
http://www.goura.jp/event/ (Japanese)

Date: August 5 (Thu)
Location: Lake Ashinoko, Hakone-Town

This is one of the three most important festivals in Hakone, one of Japan’s most famous hot spring resorts. It has also been selected as one of the fifty best festivals in Kanagawa. A long time ago, villagers dirtied Lake Ashinoko, the holy body of water of Hakone Shrine. They angered the dragon god living in the lake, and were afflicted with a terrible plague. To appease the dragon’s anger, they constructed a torii gate near the trees where a male and female dragon are said to have appeared. The legend tells that when they lit the torii on fire to dedicate it to the dragon god, their sickness was cured. In modern times, the lake is lit up beautifully by the six meter tall large torii gate (which is set on fire), lanterns, and the 4,000 fireworks that are set off above the lake.

Torii serve as barriers between areas such as shrine precincts which are ruled by the gods and the secular world where normal people live. They are a type of gate that show the entrance to the shrine area, and are thus a sacred structure. There are numerous theories about the origin of torii, and there are many places in Japan where torii stand even though there is no shrine nearby.

For more information, please visit: http://www.hakone.or.jp/english/index.html (english)

Doll floats of nine local shrine parishioners (Nasu no Yoichi, Minamoto no Yoritomo, Emperor Jinmu, Minamoto no Yoshitsune, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Kusunoki Masashige, Urashima Tarou, Yamato Takeru no Mikoto, and Emperor Nintoku) that are approximately nine meters tall will be assembled in the Karasumori-jinja Shrine precincts. They will be decorated from 8:00 a.m., depart at 2:00 p.m., be carried to the shrine where the annual festival is held, and a matsuri-bayashi orchestral performance contest will take place. Yubana Kagura dances will also be held in the shrine precincts from 4:00 p.m.

Fujisawa City Tourist Association
http://www.fujisawa-kanko.jp/english/index.html (English)

Other events:
http://www.kanagawa-kankou.or.jp/english/festival/aug.html (English)

Date: Mid-July – late August


Approximately thirty fireworks displays are held at a variety of locations in Kanagawa Prefecture from mid-July to late August, some of which feature over 10,000 fireworks.

For information about fireworks displays, please visit:
http://www.kanagawa-kankou.or.jp/topics/hanabi.html (Japanese)

For information about other events including fireworks displays, please visit:
http://www.kanagawa-kankou.or.jp/english/festival/aug.html (English)