On Sunday 5 April Kanayama Shrine held its annual Kanamara Matsuri, a traditional Japanese festival of Shinto origin that incorporates a phallic parade and has now become quite the tourist magnet. Kanamara Festival takes place every year at Kanayama Shrine in Kawasaki City.
The festival is dedicated to Kanamara, originally a god of blacksmithing but now prayed to as a god for fertility, childbirth, and protection from STDs. Unfortunately, unlike last year, the weather wasn't particularly good, with the rain turning the grounds of the shrine into sludge, but that didn't stop people from having a good time.
This festival probably had the largest concentration of foreigners I've ever seen in Japan. People of all nationalities were here to gaze upon the giant penises and drink copious amounts of beer from first thing in the morning. The place was absolutely packed, and none of the roads had been closed off for it which led to everyone trying to squeeze onto the sidewalk to catch a glimpse of the passing penises.
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