This Sunday, while I was sitting at home with a cold, I heard one of the loud-speaker cars go by my window announcing that there would be a matsuri (festival, usually related to a temple or a shrine), in Taishogun (my neighborhood). I looked at a neighborhood map, trying to remember where in my tiny neighborhood, there was any kind of temple to be having a matsuri. It turns out, Taishogun has a teeny tiny Shinto shrine, Taishogun Hachi Jinja, near the public park. I walk by it ever day, but forgot about it because the only notable feature is a concrete torii gate. The actual shrine is sheltered inside a nondescript shed.
Later that afternoon, I was doing some work, and I heard the announcement car go by again, this time saying, "Please get out of the way, the matsuri procession is coming." Not long after it, I heard the sound of a single taiko drum and chanting. By the time I had reached a good stopping point in my work, the procession was right outside of my house. Dressed in traditional shrine and matsuri attire, sometimes with rain ponchos over the top, a small procession made it's noisy way past my house. All of the shrine relics were equally wrapped in plastic to keep from getting wet.
First came the drum and a procession of priests with a tree in a box. After that was the women's float, then the men's float, a dragon, priest on a horse, and then a black car with, presumably, someone important in it.
As the priests with their tree and then women came by, I snapped a few photos from my apartment window. Then in the gap between the women and the men, I threw on my shoes, a jacket, and grabbed an umbrella to watch them pass with some of my neighbors on the street.
Unfortunately, I was not fast enough to get a good photo of the men's float. I did manage to snap a photo of the priest on a horse, however. It's not ever day you see a man on a horse in Kyoto.
With this past and the progression winding it's way, chanting, through the neighborhood, I followed my neighbors to the park and the little shrine where the procession would stop.
When I got there, the two-man dragon had just arrived, and it went around biting little kids gently on the head. Their parents would then politely thank the dragon, so I suspect it was some kind of blessing.
Finally, the men's float arrived. They put it on some kind of elevated cart to rest their shoulders, but then after a rest, painstakingly carried it under the shrine's sheltered area. This was amid lots of chanting and cheers from on-lookers, as now they heavy wooden shrine couldn't be carried on the men's shoulders, instead they had to carry it with their arms, so it wouldn't hit the roof of the shelter. Safely under the overhang, everyone cheered.
I asked one of the other people there, and they said that the procession had come from another bigger temple farther away and was going someplace else, but this is where it would rest, I assume, for a lunch break. I admit I still don't know what the matsuri was celebrating, but it seems like a really fun way to get out and celebrate your neighborhood, even in the rain.
Later that afternoon, I was doing some work, and I heard the announcement car go by again, this time saying, "Please get out of the way, the matsuri procession is coming." Not long after it, I heard the sound of a single taiko drum and chanting. By the time I had reached a good stopping point in my work, the procession was right outside of my house. Dressed in traditional shrine and matsuri attire, sometimes with rain ponchos over the top, a small procession made it's noisy way past my house. All of the shrine relics were equally wrapped in plastic to keep from getting wet.
First came the drum and a procession of priests with a tree in a box. After that was the women's float, then the men's float, a dragon, priest on a horse, and then a black car with, presumably, someone important in it.
As the priests with their tree and then women came by, I snapped a few photos from my apartment window. Then in the gap between the women and the men, I threw on my shoes, a jacket, and grabbed an umbrella to watch them pass with some of my neighbors on the street.
Unfortunately, I was not fast enough to get a good photo of the men's float. I did manage to snap a photo of the priest on a horse, however. It's not ever day you see a man on a horse in Kyoto.
With this past and the progression winding it's way, chanting, through the neighborhood, I followed my neighbors to the park and the little shrine where the procession would stop.
Finally, the men's float arrived. They put it on some kind of elevated cart to rest their shoulders, but then after a rest, painstakingly carried it under the shrine's sheltered area. This was amid lots of chanting and cheers from on-lookers, as now they heavy wooden shrine couldn't be carried on the men's shoulders, instead they had to carry it with their arms, so it wouldn't hit the roof of the shelter. Safely under the overhang, everyone cheered.
I asked one of the other people there, and they said that the procession had come from another bigger temple farther away and was going someplace else, but this is where it would rest, I assume, for a lunch break. I admit I still don't know what the matsuri was celebrating, but it seems like a really fun way to get out and celebrate your neighborhood, even in the rain.
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