Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Kesen is a region of Japan on the southeast coast of Iwate, and consists of 4 towns/cities (in order of population size): Ofunato, Rikuzentakata, Sumita and Sanriku (although recently (2003) Sanriku officially became a part of Ofunato). Ofunato is a port town where ships dock from many other countries. Squid fishing and other types of fishing take place off its coast. Rikuzentakata (meaning `the land before the high rice fields`) is a beach/fishing town, surrounded by low mountains and contains the mouth of the Kesen river as it flows into the ocean. Often called Takata, the population is around 26, 000 people and consists of many smaller villages including Takata-cho, Kesen-cho, Yonesaki-cho, Otomo-cho, Hirota-cho, Yokota-cho and Yahagi-cho. On August 7th Rikuzentakata hosts Tanabata (the Star Festival) including, in Kesen-cho, `fighting Tanabata` where floats with large logs attached to them are rammed into each other. On October 20th of each year, Rikuzentakata hosts an amazing taiko(traditional Japanese drumming) festival that sometimes features international acts as well. It has been voted the `Best Town in All of Japan` by the participants of the JET programme living there. Sumita is 80 percent forest. It does not have access to the coast. Sanriku is also on the coast and surrounded by mountains. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.