The festival starts on Saturday morning with the Yakyuken event in front of Matsuyama Castle. Matsuyama is the original home of baseball (yakyu) in Japan, which was popularised by Masaoka Shiki, the haiku poet. Yakyuken celebrates this heritage with a party game combining gestures from baseball with scissors-paper-stone, to the accompaniment of a catchy tune and song performed by geisha.

From noon, there’s a performance of Iyobushi, traditional songs, in the Shimin Kaikan hall, and in the evening, there’s a lion dance in front of the castle.

On Sunday, there’s what is known as the Daimyo Musha Gyoretsu, a parade of the feudal lord and lady, accompanied by warriors and courtiers, through the middle of Matsuyama.

The event starts at 10 am at the castle with a Shinto blessing for the Lord and Lady. The avenue of cherry trees that lines the middle ring of the castle is usually in full bloom.

The Lord of Matsuyama, accompanied by some lovely ladies and some flunkies, make their way down from the castle to the cable car station. After posing for photos, they ride the cable car down the hill, and then join a procession that starts on Ropeway Dori.

The procession takes quite a while to get started, which provides a bonanza for photographers who snap away at the very willing subjects in period clothes. The procession actually represents a number of historical periods, starting with the Meiji era when Western Victorian clothes were the new rage, followed by the Edo period, and finally the time of the Warring States. A lot of effort goes into making the clothing authentic, and if you squint or take your photos in severe close up, you can imagine yourself going back into Matsuyama’s early history.