三社祭の食物 Food of Sanja Matsuri

This is the second part of the Sanja Matsuri. I wanted to make a whole post about food because one post that would have everything would be too big.

I will apologize because I’m 100% sure that after you have seen these photos you will be dying of hunger.

I’m not sure about the names of some of these foods but food is food names doesn’t matter 😀
I’ll try to add the names later with some Japanese help hehe.

Delicious burger ! I ate one and NAAAAM ;D

This must be good too

I LOOOVE Corn !


—————————————————————————————————

—————————————————————————————————–

Doesn’t all of them look mouth watering !! I’m getting more hungry by just writing this post
So that was what people ate but what people drank well I got an answer to that too 😀

Big blocks of ice preventing the drinks getting warm

and more drinks coming in since it was a warm day and everything was getting sold fast.

If you liked this post like my facebook page ! photographer ari helminen

三社祭 Sanja Matsuri 2012 浅草 東京

Finally got around to this post !
I’m sorry that it took this long to get this done but you know that the WiFi in Aomori was not that fast to upload all these photos.

Sanja Matsuri which means “three shrine festival”, it’s one of three biggest Shinto festivals in Tokyo area. The festival lasts three days and it is held yearly on the third weekend of May.

The festival is for the honor for Hinokuma Hamanari, Hinokuma Takenari and Hajino Nakatomo, three men who founded Senjo-ji Temple.

Sanja Matsuri is mostly about people carrying portable shrines called Mikoshi for three days but on the third day they bring out the three biggest Mikoshi which makes the other mikoshi look small.
That what the festival is famous for but I loved the part that came after which was all the parties, Japanese people drunk everywhere and lots of fun and making new friends.

You could even see a lot of Yakuza there who are some of the biggest supporters of this event. I got some amazing photos of them.

Everyone should add this event to their bucket list!!

I’ll be making two different post of this festival because the amount of photos I have from there.
First one which is this post will be about the festival and the second one will be about all the food and drinks they had in there!

In my flickr you can find 170 photos from there so check out more in my flickr site ! Ari Helminen in Flickr

I’ll do my best not to make this post too long.

I saw japanese school students posing for a photographer so I decided to snap a shot too.

Beautiful Sky Tree.

One of the best festivals in the world !

This is probably the cutest thing I saw at that festival.

三社祭

Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) at Sanja Matsuri. Yakuza is part of the Japanese culture and way of life. Without Yakuza many of these beautiful festivals would not be around any more. They were nice enough to pose for couple of photos after they were done with carrying the Mikoshi.

I took a lot of photos of them because I love their tattoos and just because they are Yakuza. See more photos of them in my flickr page.

You can see that I wasn’t the only one excited

People tired after all the carrying.

Doing this all day will make you tired.

if you were wondering how many people are in this festival, during the three days 1.5 to 2 million locals and tourists every year. You are wondering what that looks in a photo ?

I’d love to try carrying this all day. Probably I would die half way tho but would be an experience.

Couple more Yakuza photos. Sorry that there are so much, I’m just so happy I got these photos.

Was a very beautiful day for the festival.

All through the festival there were these wagons with singers and players which made the mood of the festival so much better.

Here are some close up photos of the people who were carrying the shrines.

This guy was cool !

not surprising that legs hurt after everything.

Let the drinking start!

I truly hope that you liked these photos! check out my flickr to see much much more.

If you liked these photos, “like” my facebook page !

Grand opening of the Sky Tree

I decided since there are couple of million photos I took at the Sanja matsuri festival that I will share with you what happened today first the grand opening of the newest addition to the Tokyo sky line called Tokyo Sky Tree.

I have had some wifi problems the past few days as well but I try to keep things moving !

So this morning I went to the Sky tree opening and it was not a suprise that it was full of people. I was in line for about 30 minutes until I got in side (it may not sound much but it has been raining a lot all day).

I love that place, It is officially my favorite mall in Tokyo! All the great stores and everything! I love it ! I took couple of hundred photos with my pocket cam for you. I didn’t want to bring my big camera because it is raining.

You could barely see the sky tree from ground level so I was imaging the people who had the ticket to go up today, they must not have been able to see anything else expect clouds up there.

Standing at the line 😀

People were already queuing in front of their favorite stores when I arrived.

Soon as I saw these I went a bit nuts and bought couple. (Luffy from an anime called one piece, phone strap that I collect)

Cute mascot that I tried to hug ! 😀

I got free cookies !! I know you are jealous 😀

This dude was funny, I spoke with him a bit!

Way too much people rushing in to the Disney store

Sky tree Toothbrush

———————————————————————————

Upstairs errr like 12th floor or 11th there is a big exhibition area from the Chiba Institute of technology that you have to visit ! I went there without known what to expect and they were showing this cool robot that is in fukushima power plant fixing things.

You can drive it yourself as well ! It’s pretty easy since the controller is very similar to PlayStation 2 controller.

I know I know ! you want to see what I ate right ?? ok here they are 😀
Macha frappuchino with macha ice cream and macha flakes. ( Green tea with ice cream and other stuff) DEEEELIcious ! you know I love Macha !

After that I ate this amazing Strawberry smoothie with a lot of strawberries ( I love strawberries).

My dream drink is Macha strawberry frappuchino with strawberries mixed with macha ice cream on top.

Here are some other mixed photos for y’all !
this looked great in Starbucks

Sky tree food ! 😀

People waiting to get in to the restaurants.

This place reminds me of Kyoto for some reason.

Beer pyramid !!! Can’t wait for the next earthquake to make that go down 😀

I wish I could have went up there !

That girl in the middle of the photo is freaking me out a bit since she is almost like staring in to your soul 😀

More mascots for y’all !

Some of the lucky folk who got to go upstairs to the observatory

You can see much more photos in my flickr ! check em out !

I’ll start going through the Sanja matsu photos soon I hope! ( there will be a lot of Yakuza photos) 😀

Hope you enjoyed reading about my day as much I liked it 😀
Thank you for visiting my site and check out my Facebook page “Photographer Ari helminen“

Swedish Party at the Sakura Hostel Asakusa

I’m good friends with manager of the famous Sakura hostel Asakusa and she invited my girlfriend and I to a Swedish party she was having with her Swedish friends at her hostel.

Before I show you photos of this party and tell you the story of the party, I’d wanna throw a advert for sakura hostel asakusa.

If you are visiting Tokyo and thinking where to stay I recommend highly this hostel with it’s friendly staff and great atmosphere. Sakura hostel asakusa also has many different events monthly from calligraphy drawing lessons and Kimono trying  to sightseeing tours as well (most are free or very cheap). When I came to Japan the first time I stayed with Sakura house which is another part of the Sakura company but the first Hanami (flavor watching event in spring) was through Sakura hostel asakusa, they invited me there and I met many friends that has become very close to me here in Japan.

More about the Hostel. Free wifi (difficult to find in Tokyo to be honest) and of course if you are staying there you can use their computers free as well. Great kitchen area where you can actually cook well with all the space.

For entertainment the place has a flat screen tv with game consoles and board games and let’s not forget a piano 😀 !

Top 10 things about Sakura hostel Asakusa:
1st. Free WiFi
2nd. Cheap
3rd. Location, in the middle of Asakusa and close to the station
4th. Staff, some of the most friendliest people in Tokyo. ps. they can speak many languages.
5th. The size of the kitchen area
6th. Events that they organize
7th. trust worthy
8th. Big tv,game consoles and board games for a boring night
9th. Vending machines (alcohol as well)
10th. two great smoking areas right outside

If you have followed my blog you have seen that I go there pretty often to use their wifi and to meet new people and have fun.

(Sakura hostel is not paying me to write this just want to give a advert to the best hostel in Tokyo)

But now to the party !

Party was great ! there were 3 Swedish people, 1 Estonian, 1 Finnish (me), 1 German and 3 Japanese including my girlfriend. So almost all of Scandinavia you might say. Food was delicious as well with traditional Swedish meatballs and sushi with beer and hot wine. I was at the hostel already like 4-6 hours earlier to upload photos and edit, so I was taking photos when they were cooking and putting everything together as well.

Talking about Sweden with serious faces 😀

Hagoitaichi Market in Asakusa

This was my first time to visit a Hagoitaichi market. The market was full of “decorations” for new years that bring good luck for the coming year.

Of course the market was full of delicious food stands full of Japanese foods from Sushi to omonomiyaki and some more special as well like Ramen burger.

I’m now sitting here at home and watching a Christmas music show live on tv with all famous Japanese and foreign artists (including lady gaga I think), my girl is cooking delicious christmas food at the same time.

but here are some very interesting photos from this event at Asakusa, Tokyo.

as you can see, the place was packed with people!

Few Normal asakusa photos that I took



The main reason for this market was these decorations, I saw couple very good ones that I liked as well.

The dragon in the middle is one of my favorites !

and of course One piece

In my site you can see much more photos of them so visit my flickr asap ! 😀

The next part of this market was the delicious food that, I will show you photos of them now but please promise me that you won’t become too hungry!

LEt’s start!!

1st. Choco banana ( a real banana dipped in Chocolate!)

2nd. Okonomiyaki (a little different then the normal that we eat here since that is the one from Hiroshima)

3rd. Sasebo Burger (I ate this, Delicious and BiiiG!)

4th. Ramen Burger ( I wanted to eat this but was too full after the first burger)

5th. Kushiyaki (they maybe look weirdish but are tasty!)

6th. Yakitori (always delicious chicken)

7th. Takoyaki (Tasty Octopus balls )

There were so much food seriously, you had a lot of options what you wanted !

Evening photos at Asakusa.

Some panorama photos I took with my Sony, (see the big version in my flickr)

I will be posting a lot of things tonight ! (I guess you could call this as a Christmas present from me) I hope you enjoy the photos and videos that I will post here tonight !