The 17th Space Children Gathering

Every golden week, as hordes of omiyage-seeking Japanese families chase their way around Japan in search of the perfect picture and the local delicacies, a small handful of people find their way to Kyushu and go off the beaten track. In a small town called Akamizu-cho, the train line from Kumamoto-shi ends. Only few kilometers from this final train station, a steep windy road snakes through trees, past a golf course and shrines, and opens up to a natural reserve. And that's where you'll find the Niji no misaki matsuri, a just-add-rain community, a small piece of paradise.

After a long, exhausting drive from Okayama-ken, we finally made it to the festival. We paid our entrance fee and chose the gemstones we wanted our entrance necklaces to be made from. Cars and tents created a little village, with teepees, stalls and festival-goers keeping it all together. I could see the stage from afar – a small, intimate stage, with the longest pieces of bamboo I've ever seen tied together at the top to form a roof. Next to it, a koinobori was flapping in the wind, a sign that kodomo no hi was just around the corner.

The van was parked, the beers opened, and the camping chairs broken in. Night was falling though, so grudgingly we put up our tents while the boys tried to get a fire going. With only a lighter and some coal it proved to be tricky, but within a few minutes our new neighbors were huddled around the barbeque, contributing all sorts of flammable materials. And so started a continuous theme through the weekend – without asking for anything in return, random strangers shared their food, their drinks, their ganja, drums, camping equipment, ideas.. they pushed cars out of the mud, looked after each others' kids, provided shelter from the rain, organized lifts for those traveling on luck, passed on their knowledge and skills.. and everyone smiled when you looked at them.

But a festival is not a festival without some good tunes. By the second day, with a light but persistent rain, the area in front of the stage had virtually turned into mud pit. Not that this deterred the party people from stomping hard onto the ground. Some donned gumboots, others just gave up on shoes and let the rich volcanic mud paint their feet black up to the ankles. I remember looking down and thinking: "I haven't been this dirty since I was 6 years old." And just after that, someone gave me free ice cream. It was beautiful.

Music for the festival was provided by an array of diverse artists, including a 7-man "let's-jam" outfit who rocked the stage with 60's sounding beats that led to spontaneous dancing while grinning, a rock trio with a front man who looked more like a front girl, a gaijin hippy lady wearing a patchwork dress crooning with her guitar, beautiful belly dancers who hypnotized the crowd with their liquid hip movements (and then gave a crash course from the stage), ギター　パンダ who later transformed into Elvis, more jembe drums than you could shake a bamboo at and an outfit called "seikatsu circus".

Truthfully, I can say that it was one of the best weekends I've had in Japan, if not in my life. It's a side of Japan that not everyone gets to see, where there are no foreigner/Japanese barriers, where people treat you like an old friend, and where you can join the fundoshi revolution if you are so inclined. With Mount Aso in the background, surrounded by bamboo forests and the smell of food and fire, you can be, just be. Without prejudice, worries or shoes.