Jidai Matsuri
One of Kyoto's great three annual festivals, Jidai Matsuri celebrates the eras during which Kyoto was the capital of Japan (a span of over 1000 years) by hosting a big parade, in which over 2000 participants dress up in costumes to represent each specific era, and spend 5 hours walking from the Imperial Palace to the Heian Shrine. Onlookers gather in the streets, and if they're lucky enough, outside the Imperial Palace or the Heian Shrine to watch the procession go by. Standing in one place, it takes around 2 hours 40 minutes to see the whole parade.
So, on Sunday morning, Emily and I got up bright and early, as we had decided that we were going to find ourselves a good spot outside the Imperial Palace, where seats in advance were going for 2000 yen a time. (Of course, we had to stand). We tried to catch an early bus, but it was so crammed full of people that there was no way we could squeeze on. So, we waited 20 minutes for the next bus, which was almost as full, but we managed to squeeze on and stand on the steps as the doors shut about an inch away from our noses. And yet, at every stop, the driver continued to let more people on, so in the end we felt like grains of sand. In Kyoto, people get on the bus at the back, then pay at the front when they get off, but of course no-one was getting off. But we made it, and quickly nabbed one of the last good places in the Imperial Gardens. This meant that our photos would have lovely background scenery, rather then shops and McDonalds, and we were getting everyone fresh as they just left the palace, and not 5 hours later.
As we were so early, we had to stand in the same place for a while, a long time even before the parade started. We had brief conversations with the usual people who were curious as to where we came from and why we were here, and we picked up small booklets detailing the order of the parade. Then, we were approached by the cutest group of elementary kids, with their teacher, who were doing a questionnaire to practice their English, and were obviously picking out any friendly looking non-Japanese that they came across. We answered their questions (their English was actually quite good) and they gave us origami shapes that they had made as a thank-you gift. Then, they asked if they could have their photo taken with us, so we got a photo from everyone's camera:
Emily, myself, the children, and a strange posing man in the background.
Oh! And I saw my first blimp!
It was one of these things that are terrifying to look at, but you just... can't... stop... staring... Well, it doesn't look too scary in that photo, but scary it was. There was also a large bird of prey hovering around above the gardens throughout the whole parade, I suppose it had the best view of all.
So, after much waiting (we thought the parade started at 10.30am, nope, turns out it was 12 noon) it began...
I'm not putting these in any order, I wish I could, but there were so many photos and in the end I found it hard to distinguish one era from the next. So I'm just picking out a few of the best ones, (out of about 200) and sadly my camera battery ran out about 10 minutes from the end, but I'm going to steal photos from Emily later. So enjoy the costumes!
Many, many photos, and they can't all go up...
One of Kyoto's great three annual festivals, Jidai Matsuri celebrates the eras during which Kyoto was the capital of Japan (a span of over 1000 years) by hosting a big parade, in which over 2000 participants dress up in costumes to represent each specific era, and spend 5 hours walking from the Imperial Palace to the Heian Shrine. Onlookers gather in the streets, and if they're lucky enough, outside the Imperial Palace or the Heian Shrine to watch the procession go by. Standing in one place, it takes around 2 hours 40 minutes to see the whole parade.
So, on Sunday morning, Emily and I got up bright and early, as we had decided that we were going to find ourselves a good spot outside the Imperial Palace, where seats in advance were going for 2000 yen a time. (Of course, we had to stand). We tried to catch an early bus, but it was so crammed full of people that there was no way we could squeeze on. So, we waited 20 minutes for the next bus, which was almost as full, but we managed to squeeze on and stand on the steps as the doors shut about an inch away from our noses. And yet, at every stop, the driver continued to let more people on, so in the end we felt like grains of sand. In Kyoto, people get on the bus at the back, then pay at the front when they get off, but of course no-one was getting off. But we made it, and quickly nabbed one of the last good places in the Imperial Gardens. This meant that our photos would have lovely background scenery, rather then shops and McDonalds, and we were getting everyone fresh as they just left the palace, and not 5 hours later.
As we were so early, we had to stand in the same place for a while, a long time even before the parade started. We had brief conversations with the usual people who were curious as to where we came from and why we were here, and we picked up small booklets detailing the order of the parade. Then, we were approached by the cutest group of elementary kids, with their teacher, who were doing a questionnaire to practice their English, and were obviously picking out any friendly looking non-Japanese that they came across. We answered their questions (their English was actually quite good) and they gave us origami shapes that they had made as a thank-you gift. Then, they asked if they could have their photo taken with us, so we got a photo from everyone's camera:
Emily, myself, the children, and a strange posing man in the background.
Oh! And I saw my first blimp!
It was one of these things that are terrifying to look at, but you just... can't... stop... staring... Well, it doesn't look too scary in that photo, but scary it was. There was also a large bird of prey hovering around above the gardens throughout the whole parade, I suppose it had the best view of all.
So, after much waiting (we thought the parade started at 10.30am, nope, turns out it was 12 noon) it began...
I'm not putting these in any order, I wish I could, but there were so many photos and in the end I found it hard to distinguish one era from the next. So I'm just picking out a few of the best ones, (out of about 200) and sadly my camera battery ran out about 10 minutes from the end, but I'm going to steal photos from Emily later. So enjoy the costumes!
Many, many photos, and they can't all go up...
posted by Lisa @ 3:14 pm
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