Shingen-ko Festival

Last week, here in Kofu yamanashi, there was a really big festival called Shingen-ko festival. This festival is dedicated to the past ruler of Yamanashi, Takeda Shingen. If we are talking about Yamanashi, the most important thing that symbolized Yamanashi is Takeda Shingen. Thus this festival is the biggest festival in Yamanashi.

The festival lasted for 3 days. A lot of people from different part of Japan came to the festival. The main event of the festival is the samurai parade. This parade is so grand that it involved more than 1000 samurais. It even registered as the biggest samurai parade in the Guiness book of record since 2016. This parade pictures one of the greatest wars that Takeda Shingen leads in the Sengoku period.

This year I got a chance to participate in the parade as the first Indonesian battalion group in the parade.  We were treated as the special battalion of Shingen army. The parade took place near Kofu station and Maizuru Castle. It was a really amazing experience since I could do a parade with some of Indonesian public figures while wearing samurai clothes and gears. The parade was 3 kilometers walk from Maizuru Castle and go around Kofu main’s street and to the prefectural building. The parade was started around 5 p.m. and it was ended around 7 p.m. Even at night, there are more so many people that came to watch us.

Besides the parade there are also some interesting attractions such as the Taiko performances, the purification ceremony, Kendo competition, Monkey act, etc. Most of the performances were held in Maizuru castle and in the road near prefectural building. At Maizuru castle, you can enjoy the life peformance and food while flower viewing. The cherry blossom at Maizuru castle was soo beautiful. Most of the japanese that came to Maizuru castle did flower viewing whlie enjoying the live performances. There were also food stall inside Maizuru castle and in front of Kofu station. You can really felt the atmosphere of Japanese festival and flower viewing here.

Even though the last day of the festival was rained, the festival area was still full with people. Inside the prefectural building, there were some stalls of Yamanashi’s famous goods such as Shingen Mochi, Yamanashi Wine, pure water from Southern Alps, etc.