Travel plans/Winter 2014

Itinerary

• Day 1

• Day 2

• Day 3

• Day 4

• Day 5

• Day 6

• Day 7

To do

• Onsen (hot spring)
• Artsy villages
• Maybe extreme snow
• Watch kabuki
• Watch sumo
• Buy plates

Ideas of places to go

1) Here is a list of winter festivals in Japan during the time we will be there including:

• Hachinohe Enburi folk festival and dance (Aomori February 17-20)
• A whole series of drift ice festivals in Hokkaido
• Yuki doro snow lantern festival (February 8-11)
• Namahage Sedo child scaring festival (Akita Feburary 7-9)
• Akita Inukko snow dog sculpture festival (Akita Feburary 8-9)
• Yokote snow festival with kamakura and bonden (Akita February 15-17)
• Wave Artists at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum (Tokyo February 19-March 7)
• Amakusa Festival of Food (Amakusa February 15-16)
• 8th Tenmatenjin Umeshu Convention (Osaka February 15-23)
• Tokamachi Snow Festival (Niigata February 14-16) including "giant snow sculptures and stage performances; and the Nakasato Setsugen Carnival, in which a local ski resort is covered in candles to create a surreal, beautiful scene; and the Muko-nage Festival, where young men who have married during the past year are thrown into snowdrifts."
• Kite-flying contest at Tsuda no Matsubara (Kagawa February 9)
• Uesugi Snow Lantern Festival (Yamagata February 7-9)

2) Yokai town (Sakaiminato, Tottori prefecture)　

• http://www.sakaiminato.net/

3) God's conference town (Izumo, Shimane prefecture)

• https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Izumo
• The conference is in October, so gods won't be around when we go.

Note: The government of Japan maintains this list of important intangible folk cultural properties. Several refer to events that occur during our window:

Rokugō Kamakura (六郷のカマクラ行事) in Akita on February 11-15.

the Mona Satoimo Festival (茂名の里芋祭) which is a kind of potato festival in Chiba on February 19-22.

if you like oni, there is the Oni Festival of Toyohashi Shinmei Shrine (豊橋神明社の鬼祭) on February 10-11

the Spring Hoe Festival of Higoshi Shinmei Shrine (樋越神明宮の春鍬祭) on February 11.

Suggested routes

• It takes about 6 hours to get to Fukuoka (northernmost prefecture in Kyusyu) from Tokyo in Kanto area.

Idea 1 (Mika: a bit ambitious) South to North

Day 1: Kagoshima/Yakushima

Day 2: Nagasaki

Day 3: Beppu or Fukuoka

Day 4: Sanuki or Izumo

Day 5: Akita

Day 6: Hokkaido (floating ice tour)

Day 7: Back to Tokyo

Idea 2 (Mika) Mid to South to Mid

Day 1: Nagoya

Day 2: Naoshima

Day 3: Shikoku or Izumo/Sakaiminato

Day 4: Kyusyuu 1

Day 5: Kyusyuu 2

Day 6: Izumo/Sakaiminato or Hida

Day 7: Tokyo

Regions in Japan

• There are 8 main regions in Japan. In general, it's cold everywhere in Feb but it's colder in Chubu, Tohoku, and Hokkaido. There's a mountain range in the middle of Tohoku region; west of the mountain range is very snowy.

• There are onsen, temples/shrines, good food, sesame, and vending machines pretty much everywhere. The whole country is made of volcanoes.