{"id":174,"date":"2010-01-31T06:58:48","date_gmt":"2010-01-31T10:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/?p=174"},"modified":"2018-07-27T15:06:32","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T15:06:32","slug":"winter-festivals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/winter-festivals\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Festivals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Who said that you have to stay inside for the winter? Just because it&#8217;s cold doesn&#8217;t mean it has to be boring! Around late January and February, winter festivals are all the rage in Japan. You&#8217;ve probably heard of the famous <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/sapporo-yuki-matsuri-%e3%81%95%e3%81%a3%e3%81%bd%e3%82%8d%e9%9b%aa%e3%81%be%e3%81%a4%e3%82%8a\/\">Sapporo\u00a0Snow Festival<\/a>, but did you know that there\u00a0were other\u00a0winter festivals in Japan?\u00a0Every region has a distinct festival different from other regions. Let&#8217;s take a look at some of those festivals.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"float: left\" src=\"http:\/\/article.japanican.com\/en\/img\/winterfes_photo04.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/>The\u00a0Yokote Kamakura\u00a0Snow Hut\u00a0Festival is located\u00a0in Akita Prefecture (<span class=\"t_nihongo_kanji\"><strong>\u79cb\u7530\u770c<\/strong><\/span><span class=\"t_nihongo_comma\">,<\/span>). It&#8217;s famous for the various igloos that can serve as bars, small museums or a cozy place to take pictures. The igloos are compact and store heat, making it surprisely warm for visitors. The festival was first held to honor Suijin (<span class=\"t_nihongo_kanji\"><strong>\u6c34\u795e<\/strong><\/span>) or the water god. Visitors can sample some sweet sake and rice cakes; which were originally offerings to the water god.<\/p>\n<p>Lake\u00a0Shikotsu Ice Festival begins in late January and is located in Hokkaido (<strong>\u307b\u3063\u304b\u3044\u3069\u3046<\/strong>). Admission is free of charge, but the food and drinks are unfortunately not free. At night the whole place is a sea of color. Ice sculptures both big and small, simple and detailed, are lit up at night. This is further\u00a0intensified by the fireworks display. There&#8217;s also an area where you can enjoy the hot springs.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"float: left\" src=\"http:\/\/www.tohokukanko.jp\/english\/images\/event\/aomori03.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/>The Hachinohe Enburi\u00a0Festival is located in Aomori Prefecture (<strong>\u9752\u68ee\u770c<\/strong>). The festival showcases a traditional harvest dance. The dance mimics the movements of harvesting crops. The locals perform this dance to\u00a0usher in the arrival of spring. The locals visit a shrine and make offerings to the gods for a speedy spring season. Visitors can view\u00a0a parade full of people in colorful costums holding various harvest tools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who said that you have to stay inside for the winter? Just because it&#8217;s cold doesn&#8217;t mean it has to be boring! Around late January and February, winter festivals are all the rage in Japan. You&#8217;ve probably heard of the famous Sapporo\u00a0Snow Festival, but did you know that there\u00a0were other\u00a0winter festivals in Japan?\u00a0Every region has&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/winter-festivals\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2855],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-winter-festivals"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6216,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions\/6216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}