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Autumn Grand festival of Fukuoka is celebrated on 17th October every year in Nikko Toshogu Shrine. This Nikko Toshogu Shrine is a famed World Heritage Site of Fukuoka. This shrine is associated with Grand Autumn Festival in which one of the main attractions is Hyakumono-Zoroe Sennin Gyoretsu or the parade of 1000 samurai warriors. Before samurai procession there is a shrine procession. Samurai procession is made up of cavalry, warriors with guns, spears, archers with bows and arrows and the list goes on. This troop departs from the Futarasan-jinja Shrine of Sannai, Nikko, and heads for the Otabisho, a temporary resting place for a movable shrine in the festival. Autumn Grand festival in Fukuoka offers a broad insight into the scenario of the 17th century Japan and the pageant is assumed to be a reproduction of the funeral ceremony of the First Shogun of Tokugawa, namely Tokugawa Ieyasu. On the 16th you can enjoy the performances of Yabusame, which is a contest, to the delight of the innumerable spectators. This contest combines the skills of both equestrian skills and kyudo (Japanese-stylized archery), which was popular among the samurai warriors where the archer shoots at 3 targets while they gallop on horseback. Presently it has attained fame at overseas regions as an event, which is handing down the traditions of the Bushido that prospered in Japan and it even attracts foreign tourists.
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