Adventures in Kansai
Adventures in Kansai: Birdman Festival Japan
Adventures in Kansai this month reports on the Birdman Contest, held each year on the shores of Lake Biwa in Shiga prefecture. Teams battle it out with homemade, man-powered flying machines to fly as far as they can across the lake. Or not.
Japan’s Birdman Rally, or the Tori Ningen (lit. Bird Man) matsuri is held annually in Hikone, Shiga in late July.
Starting around 11am on Saturday, the contest runs until late Sunday afternoon. A large crowd of spectators, both local and tourists, watch from beneath a wonderfully shady fringe of trees, or while floating in the waters of Lake Biwa. Their children don’t watch at all but have a lot of fun chasing bugs. Why don’t you join in this year’s Birdman?
