A Little Bit of Jigoku Matsuri -- The Hell Festival👹♨️ (Patreon)

Hey hey! 🖐️🫶

I hope you're all well. I had a wonderful literally one-full-day trip to Hokkaido. The kids are planning to move to Sapporo. While they love their house and their area, things like jobs, making friends, and having hospitals and such nearby is kinda/sorta important, too. So they've got a lot going on.

But we did have fun and were able to squeeze in fishing, visits to our favorite restaurant and my favorite ice cream shop, and even discovered that the Jigoku Matsuri just happened to be that same day I was there. So we made the trek there later in the day. (Note: I linked to the ice cream place. And, yeah, it's an egg farm. We ate a boiled egg while there. It was incredible. And I'm not one to get excited over boiled eggs.)

I wanted to share a bit of the festival with you though. I thought maybe you needed to take a brief respite from the hell that is world news and visit a much more festive kind of hell: Norboribetsu's Jigoku Matsuri 👹.

My apologies for the vertical video. I was just thinking of getting just a couple short bits but ended up taking more and editing it all together. I had my good camera but it was sprinkling so I left it in the car. Turned out the rain stopped, but the car was way too far to go back and get it.

Noboribetsu is an onsen town. Hence, the "oni" theme. With all the steam rising up from the ground and the reek of sulphur everywhere, it's just like hell!!

There are some busy streets with all sorts of shops selling souvenirs, food, fun stuff. A lot of oni-themed goods. But then there's also the Hell Valley nearby. See photos below.

So it's a fun stop if you're ever out that way.

Note: I went to Asakusa in Tokyo two days after this. Asakusa used to be my absolute favorite place in Tokyo...used to be. Now. Let's talk about hell. It was so incredibly overcrowded you could hardly move. Loud, rude. Every tiktok/influencer/look at me, I'm a star!! ...oof...I'll stop blah-blah-blah complaining. But ... wow.

Noboribetsu is a tourist town, and there always are heaps of foreigners, but it is way better than Asakusa, which almost gave me a real panic attack. Had to leave before an hour was up 😭😅. My favorite thing was to see a couple foreign couples dressed in their yukata, geta and oni horns shuffling along the street hand in hand to see the festivities. That was sweet💕.

A bit about the dancing with the flags (before the King of Hell came out). It's called Sōran dancing and comes from the old fishing songs. We have TONS of them here in Yaizu (uh, fishing town), but I imagine they are in every coastal town and city in Japan. They're work songs actually. So when the fishermen are pulling in the nets they'd sing or chant or call out as a way to drive the rhythm. Surely morale boosters, too.

When you watch the dance you can see the movements mimic pulling in the nets, etc. You'll also hear "dokkoisho!" shouted a lot, or similar words. This is a kind of "heave-ho!" word. You'll also hear it from older men (or me) when they get up from a position and need to make effort to do so. Or even lifting something heavy. "Oof! Up we go!"Something like that. It's not exclusively for older people, but kind of associated with them. If you're young and are getting off the floor and go: "Dokkoisho!" You might get a giggle. So along with that you'll hear (in the video) "Sōran" sōran!" Another chant to kind of bring everyone's movements together. It's absolutely fascinating (and my very good friend Japon BuraBura knows this very well as he's a Japanese Festival Kami-sama) different areas have their own chants, own dances, own songs. And once you start looking into the layers of history and meaning, it's a never ending Holy-Wow rabbit hole.

Here's a very peaceful photo of J and K fishing.

Julyan caught two rainbow trout and two yamame (a small native trout that live in clear mountain streams). Kaho-chan and I almost caught a couple of fish, but they got away. You should have seen how HUGE they were. erm.

The place let's you fish for free, but after you catch some fish, they weight them and you can take them home or most people have them prepare them for you there. You get to choose if you want sashimi, grilled, fried...and you get a huge pot of miso soup with various veggies in it.

Okay, I'll put this up. Very last reading of Dark Tales from Japan I need to get done this weekend. Plus the next podcast. Somewhere I have a list of things to do. Stay well everyone, XOXO ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡,