Hakata Gion Yamakasa

Hakata Gion Yamakasa is Fukuoka's great July festival and one of the loudest fortnights in the Japanese calendar. It belongs to Kushida Shrine, it runs from 1 to 15 July every year whatever the weekday, and it has two quite different kinds of float. The kazari-yamakasa are the tall decorative ones, standing up to around ten metres, put up across the city centre from the 1st and free to walk around at any hour. The kaki-yamakasa are the ones that move: lower, heavier and built to be carried at a run by teams from the old Hakata districts, with water thrown over the bearers as they go.

Everything builds to the Oiyama on the 15th. The first float moves at 4:59 in the morning, in the dark, entering the precinct of Kushida Shrine for the kushida-iri — a circuit of the sacred ground, and for the first float alone the right to sing the Hakata celebration song — before running out into the streets towards the finish at Susaki-cho. Eight floats go in at five-minute intervals, and the whole thing is over by about six in the morning. Two rehearsals are easier to reach: the Oiyama Narashi at 15:59 on the 12th, over a shorter course, and the Shudan Yamamise at 15:30 on the 13th, when the floats cross into the newer half of the city.

Watching from the street is free and needs no ticket. The grandstand seats inside Kushida Shrine, where the kushida-iri actually happens, are sold in late June and are gone almost immediately; without one, take a place along the course well before dawn, or choose the afternoon rehearsals instead. The festival was inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2016 as one of Japan's yama, hoko and yatai float festivals.