Kanamara Matsuri

The Kanamara Festival is held near Kawasaki Daishi Station on the first Sunday of April. The small procession of mikoshi (portable shrine) starts off at Kaneyama Shrine (aka Wakamiya Hachimangu) and beats its baudy path through the smaller streets of the neighborhood. During the festival you'll be able to see all shapes and sizes of phallic objects, from giant statues being carried by middle-aged men in drag to small candies being licked by pretty young ladies. There are even people displaying daikon (japanese radish) carved in great detail to resemble...well...a picture tells a thousand words.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that this festival is celebrating the penis for in a way it is - a steel penis. The legend goes that there was a demon living in the vaginas of the women in this area and a local metal-smith forged a steel phallus which broke the demons teeth and thus ridding the town of it forever. This legend was mostly wishful thinking on the part of the locals, many of whom had caught venereal diseases from the prostitutes that were common in this area in the Edo Period (1603-1867), during which this festival began. Even today Kawasaki is famous for its red-light district.

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