[Suwa Shrine] The Nagasaki Kunchi festival is held for three days from October 7th to 9th. This shrine has an incredible staircase.

#NagasakiTrip #NagasakiSightseeing #NagasakiSpecialty #SuwaShrine #HalfwayUpTheStairs 　 The day before, I went to visit Suwa Shrine, the shrine where the Nagasaki Kunchi festival is dedicated, which is the purpose of this trip. The box seats for the day were sold out long ago. I also lost the lottery for the staircase seats, so I can't watch the Nagasaki Kunchi festival here at Suwa Shrine, so I take the streetcar with a one-day pass to at least visit the shrine. I got off the streetcar at the Suwa Shrine stop and headed toward Suwa Shrine through the underground passage. The walls of the passage were decorated with a variety of paintings. All of them were painted with pictures of 58 types...I think... of various votive dances and votive floats from the towns that perform the Nagasaki Kunchi festival. This year, my favorite "Whale Spout" and "Shrine Stamp Boat" will be donated, and four other towns will also donate their performances. The 58 towns only get their turn once every seven years, and because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this is the first Nagasaki Kunchi in four years, so all the towns seem to be really enthusiastic, and it's exciting for the spectators. Going up the underground passage, there is the first torii gate...a really big and impressive one...and then there are the long, long stairs, with a landing left, all the way to the top...it's gentle, but still tough. I take a break on the wide landing halfway up as I climb. In the square where the performances are being donated, a box seat has already been made next to the stairs leading up to the main shrine, and the stairs are fixed in place by two iron bars that serve as partitions. Only this median strip will be passable on the day of the Kunchi. The stairs are packed tightly on both sides, so the chances of winning are extremely low...I guess it's okay if you lose. Only the center of the square where the performances are dedicated is paved with stones in a very dense manner, which you can see even from a distance. The floats, which weigh more than 2 tons, run around and spin around, so it would be dangerous if the ground was not sturdy, so in fact, floats weighing more than 2 tons go up and down the stairs when descending and ascending...this is apparently the proper way to dedicate them. That's why the stairs are at a gentle angle, and there are several landings along the way...it's a complete preparation just in case. I went up to the square below the main shrine and looked down, and there were an incredible number of stairs. I visited Suwa Shrine, and because the main shrine is so impressive, I made an extra 500 yen for my offering, instead of the usual 100 yen. And, of course, I had to go down the stairs again. Going down is much harder than going up, but I kept going down. If I didn't go down, I wouldn't be able to eat lunch...but I managed to hang in there.