I occasionally read about how other people do stuff, such as experience traditional Japanese tea ceremonies or wander the Russian steppes or eat Big Momma’s sweet potato pie or, you know, stuff that you think people might be interested in hearing about. Sometimes when I hear these kinds of stories or see the pictures they took, I think to myself “are they just happy they did something, or did they actually find it interesting?” “Did the excitement and anticipation they held before they went ‘lift them’ through it, or did the contents affect them in a meaningful way?” These are perhaps odd questions to think about, but I can’t help wondering sometimes.

You know, you go somewhere, visit some place, you think it’s quite the deal, and then you tell people, they get all “oh man I wish I’d been there”-blue, and so on. But did you really, honestly enjoy the show, or did you just think it was cool to have done it? Sometimes I end up realizing, long after the fact, that I didn’t really get much out of some event or thing that I experienced and was all excited about at the time. The Gion festival was not, however, one of those times.

To some people that I know, it wasn’t all that interesting. To me, it told an indefinite, unending tale about a past so well preserved that we of the West could only marvel at a single shred of scrap from one of these things, were it dug out from its many centuries of hiding beneath the earth. A thousand years of history preserved and protected and even, today, the tradition, although changed, no doubt, is still upheld and honored.

It was as frightening to me to see the dedication and devotion and homage these people displayed as it was inspiring. As 30-40 people were pulling, by hand, one of these huge vehicles past you on the street, there was no being unaffected. The grinding and squeaking of the enormous wheels whipped your consciousness to life. This was no game. Not solely a game, anyway. But enough of that (or rather, more of that later)….

The Gion festival is named after a district of Kyoto, and is said to have originated as part of a purification ritual over a thousand years ago. I’d tell you all about how that came to be, but I think Wikipedia does a better job, especially since I know nearly nothing.

Yes, that is me. And yes, my hair looks a little odd right now. I’m working on it. More importantly, I’m wearing a yukata.

It was definitely an interesting week, though. During the evenings of 15th-17th of July, the streets where the festival was to take place (mainly Shijou-Kawaramachi and the surrounding streets) were turned into pedestrian streets (no cars). According to my girlfriend there weren’t a lot of people this year, but to me, it was like a living wall of flesh. Scary stuff. I hope it stays ‘not a lot of people’ the next year too, or earth might tilt over due to the excessive weight of human matter in one concentrated place.

This is the morning of July 17th, right before 9 am. “Not a lot of people.” (It actually wasn’t that bad… in front of us. Whenever I turned around I saw naught but humanity.)

The culmination of the festival was 9 am on 17th of July, where a number of differently shaped and sized carriages (32 of them, to be exact) were carried/dragged through the streets by people dressed in traditional attire. These carriages were classified as either yamas (”mountains”) or hokos (”spears”), where, generally speaking, the yamas are smaller than the hokos (sounds a little tilted, I know), or in some cases, the hokos were simply unique enough to be considered hokos, rather than yamas. Some of those carriages were huge, though. You can’t help feeling awed by the pure energy behind the moving of those monstrosities, which was of course done exactly as it was done a thousand years ago.

Fune Hoko, one of my faves (look at that birdie, so damn cool!), on the eve of July 15th; the yamas and hokos were spread out throughout the city the days prior to the actual pulling them around, and a part of the festival was to go around and look at them, even enter them. The above hoko is shaped like a ship, and is called Fune Hoko (船鉾), which simply means “Ship Hoko”.

Gion is one of the most famous festivals in Japan, and there’s a lot of information about it, in English. Here’re a few links in case you want to read more thoroughly about what I’m talking about below:

• Wikipedia article on Gion (the district).
• Wikipedia article on Gion Matsuri (the festival).
• Information about the yamas and hokos — worth reading if you want to know the background behind these things.
• A sorta map over where they were located (prior to the “big move” on July 17th) — a few years old, but you get the picture.

Now for some pictures, more or less in chronologic order.

July 15th. You can see one of the hokos up ahead, with all the white lamps in front of it.

I went to the festival twice — once on July 15th in the evening, wearing a yukata (as you can see on the first picture of this blog post), and once on July 17th in the morning, to see the actual parading-the-yamahokos thing. The above picture is from July 15th. It rained sporadically throughout the evening, which was sort of lucky for us, because although it’s icky to be out in rain, it also makes other people not be there, which makes walking and stuff a little easier. (Oh, and I might observe that wearing a yukata in rain is quite pleasant, if it’s not cold outside. Contrary to e.g. jeans and other “heavy” materials, a yukata doesn’t really get heavier in rain, and doesn’t soak up the water as bad either. I was pleasantly surprised.)

The same hoko, closer up. See the spear way up there? These things apparently weigh around 12,000 kgs (26,000-27,000 lbs), and rise 25 meters (80-85 feet) up in the air!

Kanko hoko (函谷鉾). The white little lamps just scream “asia”, don’t they? That’s sort of all I could think about when I took this picture. (In fact, my girlfriend told me the name of the thing after I posted this blog entry. Teehee.)

Kikusui hoko (菊水鉾). By the time I took this picture, it was getting dark, so it’s sort of silhouettey. (I mistakenly said this was Tsuki hoko earlier, but was corrected. Apologies!)

Closer-up picture of those pretty white lamps. You know, I’d love to just have a house one day, with lamps like these.

I took the above picture while waiting to get on the Fune Hoko (one of the first few pictures, the boat-like hoko). It was a little expensive (700 yen) but it was something I’m happy I did once.

Fune Hoko again. Still waiting to get on (but we were inside, and it was a very cozy atmosphere, so I didn’t mind the waiting one bit). The attention to detail on these things can’t really be appreciated without being there and seeing them — especially not when the pictures are taken using a cell phone camera. But you sort of get the idea, right? Oh and by the way, the plastic cover is there to protect from the rain, I’m guessing. I never really asked but I can’t think of what else.

This was taken from the inside of Fune Hoko, and is the ceiling. The little square paintings depict various little motives. The ticket for getting on actually hold one of the motives — a different one each year — so the more, uh, involved fans might try to collect the whole set. If they come back every year for 20 years straight, that is.

The wicked li’l bird, shot from the inside of Fune Hoko. I wish I had a close-up of it facing the camera, but alas, I couldn’t quite get that high up in the air without doing something folly, such as trying to climb the outside of the hoko, or something equally retarded.

This blog post has already turned way too big, and I haven’t even gotten to the actual parade yet, so I’m simply going to divide this thing into two separate posts, “to symbolize the fact I went out on two separate days”, if a more elaborate excuse is of necessity.

The next post will be focused on the parade day. I’m aiming to have it up by tomorrow!