Seihakusai Dekayama Festival 青柏祭

The three-day Seihakusai Dekayama Festival in Nanao on Ishikawa's Noto Peninsula displays the biggest wooden floats in Japan. Watch as the beautiful 20-ton floats are maneuvered through the narrow streets of this picturesque fishing village along Nanao bay.

Express JR trains connect Kanazawa and Nanao in 60 minutes.

There are also flights from Tokyo to Noto's small airport. From the airport, you can either rent a car or use the taxi service, which must be reserved by the day before.

During the Seihakusai Dekayama Festival, teams of young men called "wakashu" pull three Dekayama giant floats with large thick ropes, each from a different district of Nanao, to the town center. The floats are flamboyantly decorated, and the upper part of the floats display scenes from famous Kabuki theater plays. You can even lend a hand and pull the Dekayama.

Don't miss the remarkable way that the townspeople turn the floats 90 degrees in the middle of the streets, called tsuji-mawashi, one of the most spectacular events of the Seihakusai Dekayama Festival. There are also plenty of food stalls selling tasty street food.

There are many things to see and do around Nanao. Stop by Shirai, Nanao's famous kelp shop, where you can see varieties of kelp harvested from the nearby waters. Consider taking the Noto Satoyama Satoumi-go, a scenic train from Nanao to Anamizu for views of the coastline. In August you can see another exciting festival, the Issaki Hoto Festival.