Edo Yoshiwara Oiran Dochu

For two centuries the oiran dochu was the Yoshiwara quarter's shop window: the highest-ranking courtesan of a house moving between teahouses at a crawl, attended by apprentices, a parasol-bearer and lantern-carriers. The walk itself is the art. Balanced on three-toothed lacquered geta, the tayu traces the soto-hachimonji, an outward figure-of-eight that takes years to learn and covers a startlingly small amount of ground, under some thirty kilograms of layered silk and hairpins. The Oku-Asakusa Matsuri stages it a few hundred metres from where the quarter actually stood.

The procession is walked twice, at 13:15 and again at 15:20, so a late arrival still catches one. Between them the plaza runs through the rest of the quarter's repertoire: Asakusa geisha dance, a hokan jester's comic turn, Yoshiwara kiyari work-songs, Japanese music, taiko and a kitsune-mai fox dance. A photo session follows the second walk at around 15:45, which is the calmest chance to see the costume close up rather than over shoulders. The programme opens at 11:00 and closes just before 16:00, and it goes ahead in rain.

Sanyabori Plaza is the strip of Sumida Park laid over the mouth of the canal that once carried customers by boat up towards Yoshiwara, about fifteen minutes' walk north of Asakusa Station along the river. Take a place on the rope line half an hour before a procession if you want a clear view; the plaza is open ground, so the crowd thickens rather than blocks. This procession used to close the Ichiyo Sakura Festival in April; since 2025 it has run as its own event in late winter, and the April festival no longer carries it.