TOKYO - Japan's Silver Week began on September 19 with five consecutive days off for the first time in 11 years, drawing crowds to food and festival events across the country despite rainy weather in the Kanto region as Typhoon No. 25 approached.
At Hibiya Park in Tokyo, visitors gathered for the Niku Matsuri meat festival, where dishes from around Japan included grilled skirt steak, horse-meat hamburg steaks and stewed offal.
The venue was also hosting the Umai Aomori Festival, featuring specialties from Aomori Prefecture, with apple-based desserts proving particularly popular.
Intermittent rain began falling in central Tokyo before noon on September 19, but visitors carrying umbrellas continued to line up for the dishes they had come to try.
Cloudy and rainy conditions prevailed across much of Kanto and other areas on the first day of the Silver Week holiday as Typhoon No. 25 approached, while temperatures rose from the Tokai region westward, providing more favorable conditions for outings.
At Matsumoto Castle, a National Treasure in Nagano Prefecture, a craft beer festival offered visitors more than 150 varieties of craft beer from around the country on a rotating daily selection.
The event returned in 2026 for the first time in two years, attracting large crowds who enjoyed the opening day of the holiday with beer against the backdrop of the historic castle.
In Kishiwada, Osaka Prefecture, the Kishiwada Danjiri Festival, one of Osaka's best-known traditional festivals, also got underway, with four-ton festival floats racing powerfully through the city's streets.
The main attraction was the yarimawashi maneuver, in which the massive floats are pulled at speed around 90-degree street corners. Large crowds lined the route, raising smartphones to capture the dramatic turns as the festival unfolded.
Source: FNN
