Good Chance To See Traditional Festival Stuff, Annual Hachioji Summer Market Is Being Held!

This weekend (July 2nd and 3rd, from 9:00am to 7pm), the annual Hachioji Summer Market (Natsu-no-Fubutsu Ichi) is being held around JR Hachioji Station. 

Along the Nishi-Hoshasen You Road (laid out from the north exit of JR Hachioji Station ) you can stroll around the Asagao-Ichi (Morning Glory Market) and stalls selling traditional style wind chimes and local goodies. 

There are more traditional old-days style festival stalls, which are not just selling goods/food. They also have entertainment aspects. People can enjoy getting the goods/food after they paid for it, for example, fishing small balloons floating on the water in a big tank, scooping gold fishes from a big fish tank. At traditional candy stalls, people can order to form the candy into any shape they want to have as you can see in the upper right hand side photo. Also traditional paper-cutting stalls, which cut paper into any shape by people's requests, are poplar among little kids.

In addition, since Hachioji is one of the few towns which still have Geisha people. You can see Hachioji Geisha ladies at the Morning Glory Market. What's more, there are Geisha shows on Ekimae-Ginza Street twice a day at 1pm and 2:30pm. they show traditional dance and traditional games for Geisha parties. There will be a time to take photos with Geisha ladies after the show. 

It's a nice local seasonal event!