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Goyu-jinja Shrine Annual Grand Festival
[Toyokawa-City]
Date : 8/4/2018 to 8/5/2018
  • Goyu-jinja Shrine Annual Grand Festival
This festival, commonly known as the Goyu Summer Festival, is a summer festival held by the Goyu-jinja Shrine on the first Saturday and Sunday of August. In the Yoimiya Festival held on the day before the festival day, Shinto rituals are held and the box of fireworks is carried in. On the first day of the festival, a procession takes place involving a portable shrine carrying the deity. This procession is led by horses for dedication (now models) and a cart called the Takasagoguruma with Okina (old man) and Ona (old woman) dolls and pine-branches. Before the procession, there is a parade by the Hayashiguruma float of Nishimachi, Honmachi, Sincho, Aioi, and Oiwake, and the Mikoguruma float of Otowa. Festival music is played on the Hayashiguruma float, while boys perform a shrine maiden dance on the Mikoguruma float. In front of the shrine and at the Otabisho (the place where the portable shrine lodges during a festival), a dance featuring a pair of lions is performed by junior high school boys. At the same time, children and young men parade the town carrying the fireworks stand, and at night, exhibition fireworks and cannon fireworks are let off from the riverbed of the left bank of the Otowa River, and skyrockets and starmines are launched from the cannon field. On the second day of the festival, a total of six Hayashiguruma floats and Mikoguruma floats from the various towns gather in front of Otowa's Otabisho, and having lined up together at Goyu Bridge, they proceed west on the old Tokaido Road and head for Goyu-no-Matsunamiki. Then, the Takasagoguruma float, horses for dedication, and the portable shrine head for the Torinji Temple, where 25 torches are lit, and they proceed further toward the Goyu-jinja Shrine by the light of the torches. There are 137 stone steps to the main shrine, and the way they run up them in one go following the torch lights is such overwhelming sight. Hand held fireworks and set fireworks, etc. are held simultaneously in various places within Goyu-cho in addition to the above fireworks. After the portable shrine has been returned to the main shrine and a lion dance dedicated, the lights in the shrine grounds go out, and the festival ends when the Goryodai (object in which the deity dwells) is returned to the main shrine by the chief priest amid a solemn atmosphere.

Festival Overview

Overview

Date 8/4/2018 to 8/5/2018
Venue Goyu-jinja Shrine(Zennotana 31, Goyu-cho, Toyokawa City)

Access / Map

Access / Map

Access by public transport 20 minutes' walk from Meitetsu Main Line Goyu Station.
Access by car 25 minutes by car from Toyokawa I.C.
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