A genuine dream job for Japanese traveller

On Thursday, Shota Mikazuki plans to scale Mt Taranaki and set 200 dreams free.

The train driver from Kyoto is on a mission to foster closer connections between the people of Japan and New Zealand.

To this end, he has organised Taranaki’s first ever dream festival to be held on Mt Taranaki on Thursday.

It is modelled on the Mt Fujiyama dream festival, which is part of Japan’s annual Star festival.

On that day, people carry papers with their dreams written on them to the top of Mt Fuji.

The dream festival was started 12 years ago by Mikazuki’s friend Taishi Uchiyama, a historian who learned about the forgotten tradition and decided to revive it.

Uchiyama was keen to see the festival celebrated in New Zealand and asked Mikazuki to organise it.

So when he came to New Zealand 12 months ago for a working holiday it was with a roll of blank ‘‘dream handkerchiefs’’ in his luggage.

For the last two weeks he has been staying at Parihaka and had learned a lot of Maori tikanga and the pa’s history as well as sharing his own story.

He also collected dreams from 60 people which brought his tally to 200, he said.

The dreams were as diverse as the people he had gathered them from.

‘‘Some people dream for themselves, and some people for the world.’’

His own dream, written Japanese, is part of the banner.

‘‘My dream is I want to be a person who can listen to nature’s voice,’’ he said.

‘‘And also that this world will be a place where we can celebrate with each other when someone’s in dreams come true.’’

The individual sheets were being sewn together with the help of fellow travellers this week.

About 30 people are making the climb, including Uchiyama and six others who are flying in from Japan.

Because Parihaka residents chose not to climb the maunga out of respect, a ceremony with karakia will be held at Parihaka the evening before the climbing party left.