July 18, 2012


All Kazariyamas are dismanted. Except today - the first Wednesday after the big race of Oiyama - in a little, but famous shop, called "Kawabata zenzai", there will built a new one, of overall 4 Kazariyamas. The famous Hakata doll creator, Mr Hiroshi Tanaka, was on site. The shop is located in the Kawabata-gawa shopping town. It is a shopping town 400 meters long with continuous history in Hakata, near Kawabata-Dori.

The newly built Kazariyama will placed on three places the hole year: in the shop itself "Kawabata zenzei", in the Kushida Shrine and in the Kyushu National Museum Dazaifu - a very old town in Fukuoka.

Kamikawabata-gawa store from inside, you can buy a lot of typical japanese things.

here you can see Mr. Tanaka and the Kawabata zenai shop from outside

Inside of the store were mountains of decorations for Yamakasa. It was very tight. His son and his wife were also there and helped. I could make pictures from the entrance and the backside

The "Kawabata zenzai"'s Zenzais are sweet red-bean soup with rice cakes. They are very famous. In the Zenzai open area, it is possible to eat Zenzai Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and holidays! I tasted it - oishi!

On the way home, I saw this little Kakiyama in the Hakata station. They are still after the Oiyama race.