Kamakura Festival

The kamakura festival is a winter festival held in February in my city, Yokote. Kamakura are similar to igloos. You can go inside to sit and relax and it doesn’t melt at all. Some of them have benches and tables carved out of snow on the inside, and it’s always been amazing to me how nothing melts throughout the festival. Some people even keep heaters going in the kamakura which further amazes me. I’m not really sure about how kamakura are made, but I’m sure there’s magic involved.

There are a lot of kamakura around the entire city, so I really enjoy walking around with no specific destination. There are always surprises around every corner. Will I see a giant kamakura? Or an army of small ones? Maybe I’ll see one of the many snow sculptures around the city. Everything looks fairytale-like, especially when it’s lightly snowing. When the sun fully sets, hundreds of mini kamakura are illuminated near the Yokote River.

During the festival, children invite people inside their kamakura and give out grilled mochi and a drink called amazake. Amazake is a sweet, warm drink made from rice with little to no alcohol content. It’s on the thicker side and it has a similar texture as oatmeal. This drink is perfect for keeping warm while walking around the city.

Special Kamakura

There are a couple of special kamakura hidden somewhere in the city. I was up for the challenge of trying to find them. I had heard whispers about a kamakura that serves hot chocolate. The only information I had was that the entrance of it looked like a heart. There are no maps for this event, so it was really a big scavenger hunt. Zach and I put on our snow boots and headed out hoping to find this legendary kamakura.

We drove towards the main area of the festival and parked in a place we thought we might find the hot chocolate kamakura. We walked around aimlessly for a bit, shivering and losing feeling in our fingers, but then we saw it. We felt very accomplished and eager to warm up with some hot chocolate.

The kamakura itself was adorable and had hearts carved into the walls. There was even a table shaped like a heart that was made out of snow. It was warm inside, so we stayed there for a while chatting and savoring every sip of our hot chocolate. After we thawed ourselves out, we set out to find the other special kamakura.

The other kamakura I heard about was called the “love kamakura.” It’s another one with a heart as the entrance, but it’s way more over the top. This one wasn’t as hard to find because there was a long line and a colorful, lit up tunnel that led to it. The love kamakura was very cute and had lights running around the bottom of it as well as around the heart. There were even more hearts carved out on the walls inside. This was one of the busier areas of the festival and a lot of people were waiting in line to take a photo. The love kamakura was my favorite part and I adored all the details of it!

Mini Kamakura

After the sun sets, hundreds of mini kamakura are illuminated along the Yokote river bank. It’s a sea of lights and it reminds me a little of the lantern scene from Tangled. I had to pay attention to where I was walking since there are so, so many of these little kamakura. I didn’t want to smash any!

People are welcome to make their own mini kamakura and place a light source in them. There were children making their own, which is another really cool part about this festival. A lot of the kamakura around the city are made by locals and children, but anyone can try to make their own before the festival starts at night. Most schools have a bunch of mini kamakura and some big ones since students are given time to build them for the festival. It’s really a wholesome and welcoming festival that I look forward to every year.