Ecchū-Yatsuo, Suwa-machi Hondori Street

photo by さかおり · CC BY-SA 4.0

photo by 掬茶 · CC BY-SA 4.0

The paved street where the Owara is danced: three nights in September, in the dark, faces always covered.

The street runs along a terrace about 30 metres above the Ida River, held up by stone walls: from here, every year on 1–3 September, the evening procession of the Owara Kaze no Bon sets off, a dance that the neighbourhoods of Yatsuo have kept alive for over three hundred years to pray for the harvest against the typhoons of late summer. The dancers wear a straw hat pulled down over their eyes, and the festival's unwritten code forbids showing the face: it is a melancholy dance, not a postcard smile. The stone-paved street is listed among the hundred most beautiful streets in Japan.

Old merchant neighbourhood of Ecchū-Yatsuo, now part of Toyama municipality after the 2005 administrative merger, which grew rich in the Edo period from trade with the Hida region, the travelling sale of medicines and sericulture.

ℹ️ The street is public and can be walked at any time. The Owara Kaze no Bon is held every year on 1–3 September, 17:00–23:00 (19:00–23:00 on the 3rd), with huge crowds: book accommodation well in advance. Source: Toyama municipality website.

🚉 Etchu-Yatsuo · 30 min walk

Sources: city.toyama.lg.jp · tabi-mag.jp

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