Japanese Festival Food

When it comes to festivals in Japan, save your stomach space! Vendors come from all over and travel like carni’s, making a living from one festival to another, living out of their vans. But the food they make is often times, really good!!! There are the regular foods that are often seen like grilled corn, or grilled sea food or meats. Then there are vendors that come around, serving up foods that are rarely seen in certain neck of the woods.

The past couple of weeks was the annual Hojoya Festival. The first festival I went to while living in Fukuoka. It brought back a lot of memories, and happily I’m better equip to read signs, order and try different types of foods. Excitingly, my new festival food finds that I’ve never had before:

Deep-fried ice cream. Different flavors to choose from, but the ice cream inside often turns out to be more like soup. Eat with caution, because this can get messy.

Deep-fried ice cream.

A YU (あゆ) Fish. Everything is intact, salted, and roasted. This vendor had a little bar/eating area set up around his cooking pit. Nice and crispy, and everything is edible! No waste, though some people aren’t too fond about eating the head, but it is edible.

A YU Fish.

Potato Mochi (ポテトもち). Round and flat (potato-based) moochi on a stick. Deep fried, with a choice of topping. The #1 popular topping is cheese.

Potato Mochi.

Choco-Banana. I have been making it my thing to get this every time I go to a festival, because they’re just so good! And I justify being “healthy” at one point, though it’s completely ousted by the chocolate coating and junk-food accessories.
But the important point here is that usually these vendors offer 2 for 1 if you beat them at “jun-ken” (rock, paper, scissors)!!

Choco-Banana.

Dontaku Festival

Right now is Golden Week, which is almost a week long holiday with the couple odd ball days that are considered working days – but those can easily be written off as paid vacation if one chooses. Many people take advantage of this time to travel, and it’s also considered the busiest time as well for tourism, both in and outside of Japan.

Golden Week in Fukuoka.

Dontaku Festival

For two days in Golden Week (May 3rd & 4th), Fukuoka city hosts its largest annual festival, Dontaku. Tons of food and game stalls, entertainment stations throughout Tenjin, and a parade that runs all day until 6:30 PM. This year, my friend invited me to join her and her dance group to participate in the parade.

Dontaku Festival, Fukuoka.
(May 3rd & 4th)

Choco-Banana
One of my now favorite festival foods! Decorated, chocolate covered bananas. We found a stall that offered a game of rock-paper-scissors. If the customer won the game, they would get 2 cocoa-bananas for the price of one. So I tried my luck…and guess who won?!? 😀

Choco-Bananas, 2 for 1.
Thank you scissors!^^

Dontaku, Fukuoka City

At first the city was contemplating to cancel this festival due to recent events that had effected much of Eastern Japan. This was out of consideration that festivities might seem inconsiderate when another part of the country is going through hard times. Happily it went on as planned and keeping with the supportive Japanese spirit organizers themed this year’s Dontaku: “Ganbaru Nippon!” (Do your best, Japan!).

Dontaku Parade, runs all day until 6:30PM.

Yosakoi Parade Dance

Every Wednesday for the past month my friend and I have been attending rehearsals for this parade. That’s about 4 or 5 rehearsals… I was a bit scared on the day of. There were many different dance groups, but for this festival we all joined together to represent our town. I loved the energy and spirit from our dance as it encourages people to come together. Aside from Disneyland, this was the most lively and entertaining family-oriented parade I’ve ever seen and participated in.