Minami-Satsuma’s 20th Annual Fukiage Beach Sand Festival
This is the third of four posts profiling the places we visited during Japan’s “Golden Week” in Spring 2007. The first is Yakushima, the second is Tanegashima, ,and the fourth is Kagoshima City. We also had a couple of misadventures on the trip which I wrote about here and here.
ふきあげ はま すな の さいてん
The Great Khan’s Palace at Kambalu, at the Fukiage Beach Sand Festival
After taking the ferry back to Kyushu from Tanegashima, we finished our Golden Week vacation with two days in Kagoshima City. This post is about our half-day trip from Kagoshima to Minami-Satsuma for their 20th annual Sand Festival (that link is for the official site, which is in Japanese, but if you click around you can see some more pictures, including some cool nighttime shots). After the wonderful time we had at the Sapporo Snow Festival in February, this seemed like the perfect contrast.
It was an hour long ride on a packed bus from Kagoshima, which made Kai miserable (Eidan surprisingly handled it just fine). The bus turned out to be the best option though, as there was a huge traffic back-up as we approached the site of the festival, and the driver was savvy enough to take us down some dusty farm roads to get around all the cars. What surprised me however, was that we didn’t end up at Fukiage beach, or any beach at all. The festival instead was in a big lot surrounded by farmland, with no coast in sight. They must have hauled in many truckloads of sand. We asked one of the staff and he said the beach was about a kilometer and a half away. Adjacent to the lot was a large building with a stage, concession stands, etc. I imagine they held it there instead of the beach to take advantage of the amenities. Personally though, I think it would’ve been more fun to have a sand festival on the beach!
The sculptures were amazing. The theme this year was exploration, and the sculptures were grouped by continent: Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Fortunately, Kai perked up once we got some lunch in him, and Eidan napped in his stroller (which was preferable to having to spend all our time trying to keep him from stomping on the sculptures). There were two stages with live bands, and a flower show as well, so there was plenty to see for a few hours.
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