Which impressed you the most and why?
I’ve only been to Canada in non-holiday time so I have nothing to share but am interested in your experiences.
Oktoberfest in Munich. I think I witnessed it. I was there, but I can’t be sure.
I’ve been in Korea for over 10 years now. The most impressive holiday here is Lunar New Years. We dress up in Korean traditional clothes and set out a table full of food, then burn incense and do a ceremony to remember our ancestors. Basically it’s a series of bowing to the table (where the ghosts are supposed to be sitting). And by bowing I mean get down on your knees, put your head to the floor kind of bowing. We’re not allowed to eat until the ghosts have finished with their meal (we give them a few minutes to savor the smells after we’re finished with all our bowing).
Oh, and the best part - we do bows to our elders, and they give us cash. How cool is that? I think the most I’ve earned was 300 dollars. $300 for a bit of bowing is a sweet deal, doncha think?
Guy Fawkes Day in England. They burn stuff, and really, when you’re a kid, is there anything better than fire?
I’m not really sure (though I was there, and I did witness it).
The summer after my Junior year of high school, I went on a trip through Europe. It was one of those “If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium” tours; we visited 11 cities in 28 days.
One day, we were taking our motorcoach through Spain, on our way from one city to the next. We stopped at some small village for a lunch break, only to find that is was a local holiday. We stepped off the bus almost right into the middle of a parade, and spent a couple lovely hours celebrating with the locals.
I don’t recall the name of the town, or exactly what the occasion was.
While not earth-shattering, I have had the opportunity to celebrate the following holidays (?) in foreign lands:
[ul]
[li]Festival of San Giovanni in Roma in 1996 with my younger daughter (BTW IANAC) - this is the holiday where the Pope delivers mass at the Mother Church of Rome and the namesake of its patron San Giovanni in Laterano. Most of the other tourists had no idea who was conducting the mass (it is on June 24th or thereabouts)[/li][li]With my older daughter in 2003 in Paris we witnessed the celebration of the first day of summer when some half a million plus Parisians came out to celebrate with free concerts by local bands and a crowd that was into celebrating and not making a nuisance of themselves. It was fun to watch all the people having a good time.[/li][li]The annual “let’s drink the entire production of wine bottled in fall celebration” in Erlenbach, Germany during one night in May. It seems (at the time anyway [1974] ) little of the town’s wine was actually exported so the entire town would gather and consume the wine in one night at a giant community celebration. My wife and I left, with our friends, sometime around 7:00 AM the next morning with a large crowd still partaking in the festivities.[/li][li]Since I thought it a foreign country at the time (I had just moved there from the Midwest), the annual celebrations of Patriots and Bunker Hill Day in Boston. I didn’t mind the day off of work for the two holidays though![/li][/ul]
I was in Paris last year, on Bastille Day. Saw the parade on the Champs-Élysees, and the totally awesome fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. Unforgettable.
For me, it was Bastille Day in Marseille, also last year. The fireworks along the harbor were the best I have ever seen. The streets were packed with people. A fantastic party.
We were in Bali for Nepi.
Bali is the only Hindu island in Indonesia so it’s only celebrated there, I believe. I’d been to Indonesia a couple of times before and I had never heard of it.
We were, in fact, flying out on Nepi. When we were trying to confirm our tickets the travel agents all said, “Oh, you’re leaving on Nepi, how will you get to the airport?” We were universally pitied for our unfortunate luck.
We were very confused. Turns out you can’t go out on the streets, use your electricity, take a cab. There are cultural police (in great costumes, by the by, sarongs, cool lids and swords!) patroling the streets and chasing rule breakers. Yikes!
We finally got the skinny from our local business contacts, it’s a day of reflection. Not so much game playing and socializing as our holidays are. Being westerners living in Bali they check into a posh hotel for the duration. Because posh hotels run as usual within their own compounds.
Even the cheap digs we were in, shut off the lights and music, boarded up the entry blocked the drive etc. All the food had to be prepared the day before, no cooking.
The night before however was quite a blow out. Literally, there were parades and way cool floats, loud music and bands, and fireworks. Or, well, firecrackers, all locally constructed, including coconut canons. The whole idea is to make as much noise as possible and late, late into the night you could hear explosions.
Next morning we snuck out of our guesthouse, against the protests of our landlords, and crept through the eerily quiet laneways of Kuta Beach.( Kuta Beach is the hottest beach in Bali, like Fort Lauderdale to Auzzies, and the laneways are usually packed with people day and night, it’s a hopping spot with plenty of foot traffic.) And we did get shouted at a couple of times by people who spied us from upper stories, the entries to all the hotels and guesthouses had been blocked off.
We only had to go a couple of alleyways over to our friends upscale hotel where we were all shuttling to the hotel, it was THE only transport we could arrange, and were very lucky they were staying at one of the few large hotels that could secure a special permit for their vehicle.
And we were checked twice for our permit, too.
It was great fun really, I enjoyed it all, even the creeping around wondering what would become of us should we get caught. But then, I love an adventure.
Songkran (Thai New Year) in Bangkok this year. It starts on April 13th and lasts about 3 days. Some people call it the Water Holiday because the custom is to spray, dip, dump, pour, throw, squirt, etc. copious amounts of water on anyone and everyone. Seems it’s especially fun to soak the “Farang” (foreigners).
If you are in (Bangkok at least) an even slightly crowded area during this holiday (especially the third day of it, it seems) you WILL get wet. Very, very wet.
This holiday took place on the day I was leaving Thailand. My flight was in the evening, but I had already dressed in my “travelling clothes” by 1 or 2PM.
I got soaked. I was checked out of my hotel already and I needed a shower and change of clothes. Luckily my massage girl buddy helped me out.
Oh-- the Bangkokkers also rub white powder (baby powder or talc, I think) on your cheeks, One looks as though they just stuck their head in the ashes of an extinguished campfire. Nice.
But it was fun. The Thai folks I was around were the happiest and nicest people I have ever met.
May Day in Linz, Austria. There was a big county fair type of thing across the Danube from where we stayed. What I remember best was that a lot of booths were selling attic stairs - stairs that fold down so you can get into your attic, and fold up again when not in use. I’m not dissing attic stairs: we owned a house with a set, and they were great.
But it wasn’t exactly Oktoberfest.
I’m jealous, Bastille Day is my birthday so the thought of the whole country celebrating my birthday would be awesome! 
Guy Fawkes Day is not a holiday . The banks or shops are not closed. It’s just another working day
Ivan Kupalo in a small town in central Siberia, outside Novosibirsk. Lots of people sneaking up on each other to soak each other with buckets of water. Also a ritual burning of straw effigies, which are then floated down the river - apparently how far they make it downstream before sinking is supposed to tell you something about what that year’s harvest is going to be like.
I’ve seen that same holiday and maybe even in the same town (Akademgorodok?) Mostly the boys try to throw the water on girls in white shirts from what I’ve seen.
In Afghanistan I attended a Shia mosque during Ashura when flagellants chant and beat themselves until the blood really flows. I also was on the street in Karbala during Ashura in Iraq, but didn’t have the juevos to try to enter the mosque (I had been invited in Kabul).
I’ve also been around for Ramadan in Kosovo and Iraq.
I’m here in Japan, and Golden Week just passed, and boy was it crowded because just about everybody goes on holiday. And then the day afterwards - silent. I did happen to miss a flower festival in Hiroshima by just a few hours though. Bummed about that one.
I was in Ireland for the Summer Solstice, and we were actually at Tara on that day. I think I saw a bunch of neoPagans there, but nobody was doing anything. There were pictures of them in the next day’s newspaoper, so I think we saw them after the festivities had mostly subsided.
Aside from them, nobody was taking any notice.
Couldn’t help noticing, though, that it stayed really light really late. It was still pretty bright out at 10 PM – you could easily read a newspaper outdoors without any lights.
Yeah, that was the most fun foreign holiday I’ve witnessed. At one point, I was on a bus on a highway, windows rolled down because of the nice weather. Up ahead, I saw several monks on the median fiddling with something. I thought, gee, what’s going on there?
As everyone else on the bus scatters for cover, the monks lift up a big garbage can – probably 40 gallon sized or so – in my memory, this part is all in slow motion. With the bus hurtling 50 mph down the road, the monks give the ol’ ho-heave-ho and propel a huge sheet of water right at the bus… through my open window… and score a direct hit right on my face. I was absolutely drenched, to the amusement of everyone else on the bus who had ducked.
Chinese new years in Southwest China was kind of annoying. Punk kids found it fun to throw large firecrackers at the laowai (me). The mild hooliganism really spoiled the fun that I could have had.
Back a long time ago, when I was 15, my family visited Italy, and on Shrove Tuesday we happened to be in Florence. The experience of everyone out in in the street, throwing confetti at everyone else and hitting them with plastic weapons (i.e., Carnival), was unforgettable.
(During the few days we were in Florence, there was also a total eclipse of the Sun, making the visit even more memorable).
Saudi Arabia for Ramadan!
On the other hand, don’t bother.