A couple weeks ago, I went to the Yokaichi Giant Kite Festival in Shiga prefecture. Located in the Yokaichi district of Higashiomi, Shiga, east of Kyoto, the festival dates back to the 1800s and features—you guessed it—one of the world’s largest kites.

Weighing 700 kilograms (slightly more than a sumo wrestler)  and measuring 100 tatami mats wide (about 12 by 13 meters), this is one kite you don’t want to mess with.

The Yokaichi festival is held annually on the last Sunday of May, on a field near a riverbank in the outskirts of small-town Yokaichi. The highlight of the festival is the flying of the giant kite, which is flown twice during the day.

You can also bring your own kite to fly at the festival, or enter a kite competition for local teams. Teams make and decorate oversized giant kites, which are judged for their decorations and how well they fly.

Several teams—local clubs and schools—entered the contest.

The designs were colorful and cute. There were many tiger-themed ones (for the Year of the Tiger):

And this charming one was one of my favorites. It appears to depict what BP is doing to Mother Nature:

Like the kites in the competition, the giant kite is also handmade. It’s made from bamboo and rice paper, and a new one is built every three years. I assume that the reason they replace it so often is that the kite is actually pretty delicate—a few years ago, the giant kite broke apart mid-air and actually injured some festival goers. Fortunately, I didn’t find out about this until after the festival.

The kite is so big that it requires a team of people to assemble it (or whatever they need to do) on site, before they can fly it. I watched the afternoon flying of the giant kite (it's flown once in the morning, too). After a lengthy prep time, the kite took off after 2:00.

As you can imagine with a 700-kilogram kite, the kite requires a whole team of people to hold onto its line. This group controlled the flight of the kite by pumping the line up and down, like workers pumping an old handcar on a railroad.

Some years, if the wind isn't good, the kite only flies for a few seconds, or not at all. This year, we were lucky. The kite flew for a good few minutes, before dropping down for good (this is the third and final year for this kite to be used).

What surprised me most about this festival is how much it reminded me of a county fair in America. Because the Yokaichi festival is held on a rural field, it feels like a fairground in the US. Along with the requisite festival food stands, there were even live performances on a small soundstage—so county fair-like! It felt nice.

(Note: When we first got there, a local bluegrass band started playing on the soundstage. I'm no bluegrass connoisseur, but I thought they sounded good--they even sang with a down-home, country-American accent. By the time they had sung Take Me Home, Country Roads, and moved on to the Tennessee Waltz, I started feeling teary-eyed, and my fellow American friends and I admitted that we all felt a little homesick.)

Of course, there were many only-in-Japan touches to the festival—some sort of Miss Yokaichi contest, for one thing.

As well as the Japanese equivalent to the Red Hat Society. These ladies were adorable (and so well-coordinated)!

After the festival, the fun continued. My friends and I went to a cake buffet in downtown Yokaichi. Yes, a cake buffet. I didn’t know until recently that Japan has many cake buffets. And we aren’t talking about Costco-style carrot cake either (with all due respect to Costco), but incredibly delicious, French-patisserie-style cakes that made my heart weep with joy (and probably my cholesterol levels, too).

The cake buffet we went to is Club Harie, a bakery and buffet chain that is, apparently, pretty popular in Japan.

At Club Harie, you can order a cake set, which gives you three types of cakes of your choice, plus a drink. Or, you can order the cake buffet option, which gives you 90 minutes of all-you-can-eat cake, drinks, and appetizers for just 2205 yen (I swear, I don't work for them).

My friends and I opted for the cake buffet (of course), and it was absolutely delicious. There are pastries, small desserts, and appetizers (mini pizza slices, quiche, etc.) that you can get from self-serve tables.

The cakes themselves are located behind a display counter; you choose what you want, and a pastry chef cuts the slices for you. It’s basically every child’s (and adult’s) dream come true. The cakes were beautiful—tarts, mousses, cheesecake, tortes, crème brulee.

The ones I chose included a strawberry tart, a raspberry-and-white-chocolate mouse (complete with gold flakes—ah, the luxury), crème brulee, and the best cheesecake I’ve had yet in Japan.