One of the more recently created yearly festivals (only 7 years old or so), the Sasayama wild boar matsuri is definitely a must-go if you live in Hyogo. Traveling from further away is maybe not worth it, unless you really enjoy いのしし. This year it was held during the last weekend in January and I assume it is usually around the same time every year. The event was on Sasayama castle grounds and there was plenty of parking (200Y).
What to do:
Eat Wild Boar
-There are many stands set up that sell a variety of wild boar dishes, including boar onigiri, oden, burger, croquettes and straight-up barbecued boar meat.
-Maybe your only opportunity to see a whole boar being roasted on a spit in Kansai area.
-There are also many boar shaped cookies and other souvenir type snacks.
Watch いのしし Race
- During the day, there are three races. This year, I think they were at 11am, 1pm and 3pm.
- Three smaller boars are put into a 50-meter stretch of "track" and first one to the end wins.
- Bets open 30 mins before each race.
Interesting Notes:
- The タンバーガー (たんば + バーガー) is the wild boar burger that is the specialty. I guess it was all the rage last year and the 1,000 available burgers sold out quickly. However, the boar roast I guess was new and attracted the majority of the crowd this year.
- After the meat is all gone from the roasted boars, the bones are given away for free (some still have good amounts of meat on them...)
- I think the two losing boars subsequently get roasted because there were two boars on the spit after the first race...
- If you are an animal activist or member of PETA, you might not like what you see.
Overall, a fun stop-through. Definitely not an entire day`s worth of adventure, but definitely worth enjoying for an hour or two. The food was really really good. I had the boar oden and タンバーガー, as well as buying some boar cookies and break shaped like boar for my host family in Hirakata. Watch out for the bread though. It was supposed to be filled with black bean paste, but only had one black bean as an eye (Tamba area is known for the sweet black beans, also very good).
Oh, yea. And I walked away with a souvenir of my own: the left over roasted boar`s head. Maybe I will boil it and mount it to the grill of my car...
Only in Japan
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| Tamba-ga |
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| Inoshishi Oden |
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| Boar cookies - omiyage |
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