Narita Drum Festival

A couple of weeks ago, IES Abroad hosted a field trip to Narita for the annual Taiko Drum Festival. It was the first time for most of us to go back to Narita after arriving at the airport, and it was a nice change of pace from being in the busy Tokyo area. Aside from Narita’s airport, it is also famous for its grilled eel. IES Abroad took us to one of the oldest restaurants on Omotesando rd. in Narita to eat “unaju,” or grilled eel over rice. It was one of the few restaurants that prepared the eel traditionally, by butchering and grilling eel in the front of the restaurant. Afterwards, we had some time to look around the shops and watch small performances from different taiko drum groups before we had to meet up again for our group tour of Naritasan Shinsouji temple. We got to experience a Buddhist ritual performed by the local monks to celebrate the fire deity. The fire used during the ritual has been burning for over a century, and is used to start every ceremony.

This year marked the 60th anniversary of Narita, and the local businesses in the area brought in a famous Taiko company for the main performance. The name of the group escapes me, but they had an amazing performance in front of the Shinsouji Temple.