List of the Most Unique Festivals in the World – Each country certainly has several festivals that can be held anywhere and can also benefit the audience very well.
In addition to choosing tourist destinations, organizing in a country is an activity that can attract tourist visits. Festivals are usually held to commemorate an event and are held at a certain time.
Well, it turns out that in various other parts of the world, there are celebration days that will make you gasp, ranging from tomato throwing festivals to being naked. Although it is quite strange, but this festival is very popular with tourists and attracts many visits every year.
1. Hadaka Matsuri, Japan
About 500 years ago, a unique festival appeared in . Named Hadaka Matsuri, this festival is now more popularly known as the Naked Festival.
Every year thousands of men come to join the Hadaka Matsuri to hunt for fortune. Compiled from various sources, although it is known as the Naked Festival, the participants who take part in it are not completely naked or not wearing barakfestival any clothes.
During the festival, the men who take part in the Hadaka Matsuri are required to wear a cloth known as Fundoshi. Fundoshi wrapped around the form of a loincloth to cover the vital parts. They also wear special white socks known as Tabi.
The Hadaka Matsuri is generally held on the third Saturday in February. For 2020, the Hadaka Matsuri was held on February 15, exactly the day after Valentine’s Day. Usually these times are the coldest times in Japan.
The initial procession has the meaning of cleansing oneself from worldly sins. So that they will be considered worthy and clean from sin when they want to enter the temple complex. The initial process of cleansing sins lasted for approximately two hours.
Approaching 22.00 local time, the exciting stage of the new Naked Festival will begin. Shrine priests will begin throwing hundreds of twigs and two sticks dubbed as Shingi at participants.
The two Shingi sticks are considered a symbol of prosperity and well-being. Japanese people believe that the person who can get the stick will receive good luck throughout the year.
Shingi sticks are considered to have higher strength than twigs. Because the stick can be taken home and used as a talisman.
2. La Tomatina, Spain
Every Wednesday, the last week of August, Spanish residents, especially those located in Bunol City, will flock to Plaza del Pueblo. In the city, which is about 38 km west of Valencia, residents and tourists will throw tomatoes at each other together, without feeling annoyed between them for three days in a row.
Hundreds of tons of overripe tomatoes came to Bunol, Spain, to satisfy the cravings of war-ridden residents and tourists alike and create a pool of red tomatoes around the venue. No wonder this festival is one of the most popular festivals that must be attended while in Spain.
According to the official website of the La Tomatina Festival, this tomato war was started by accident. It started with the irritation of a young man who fell during a parade with a group of musicians, because he was too excited to participate in a series of parade events.
The annoyed young man raged and pelted the surroundings with tomatoes from a nearby vegetable stall. The tantrum then became a kind of annual ritual that should not be abandoned.
Although it was banned in the 1950s, in fact, in 2002, the La Tomatina Festival was included in the Festivity of International Tourist Interest by the local Tourism Secretariat General.