A yakata-bune, literally meaning a boat shaped like a house, is a Japanese-style pleasure boat to enjoy nice scenery with food and drinks.

A yakata-bune is equipped with a roof and a tatami-matted floor, where guests can enjoy a Japanese-style banquet while viewing the urban waterfront.  This amusement was popular among high-ranking samurai and wealthy merchants across the country in the Edo period (The 17th-19th century).  Larger boats such as double-deckers or with 20-meter-long tatami-matted seating areas were deployed in the golden age.  After the Second World War, however, the Japanese diet became increasingly westernized while serious water pollution of rivers and bays occurred.  A yakata-bune consequently began to decline.  But, thanks to the trend to reconsider Japanese diet, tradition and the increasing number of foreign visitors, a yakata-bune is reviving now.  Particularly in Tokyo, it gains popularity that a yakata-bune dinner cruise from the Sumida River down to Tokyo Bay while enjoying waterfront night view of the city.  The photo shows a grope of yakata-bune moored at a canal leading to the Sumida River.

Jason Hardy.

http://tour-guide-japan.jp/