That out of the way, I’ve uploaded a bunch of pictures from Gion 2009. Actually I didn’t take a lot of pictures, not nearly as many as I took 2008 [1] [2] — in fact, I didn’t even go to the big climax deal in the morning on the 17th this year — but I did take some and the camera is a lot better this time around. The pictures are available in a set on flickr, here.

More exciting is the fact my camera can make movies, and I made one of the float you see in the first couple of pictures. It’s embedded below.

That’s all for now! Excuse me as I go perish in the sultry heat.

Regardless, I found myself not understanding a word they were saying — unsurprisingly; I have a hard time understanding non-conversational-but-regular Japanese, and this was nothing of the kind, spoken at a very un-regular pace. Even if I didn’t understand the words, I might appreciate the actual scenery or the performance for what it is, beyond words and meaning, but this was not the case either.

In fact, I found it difficult not to laugh. Watching this man dressed in clothes that made him look quite odd, with a woman’s mask over his head, only made me think of the fact that yes, back in the days, women were not allowed on stage, and I didn’t find it particularly admirable that they preserved this tradition (although it wouldn’t be Noh if they didn’t, and I’ll be the first to admit that).

I have no pictures, because I didn’t have a chance to borrow a camera. And besides, noone else took pictures so I suppose it was forbidden. It was pretty, but it wasn’t special.

Then there was the drum playing man who kept saying the Swedish word “Ja!” (“yes”) with a perfect accent (where’d he learn that — Swedish students should take note!), who sounded so slap-stick amusing that I had to try not to listen to him or I’d end up laughing out loud.

And the flute. Its sole purpose must have been to wake the audience up. The old man next to me (or next to his wife who was next to me) started snoring loudly at some point, and the wife nudged him a few times to wake him up. But yes, the flute. It was an ear-piercing shrieking screech. It’d wake the dead. And the drowsy audience.

I can’t blame them for being drowsy. The way Noh is sung/spoken simply lulls you to sleep. I found myself sleepy too.

The sad part is, the play was about The Tale of Genji but I still didn’t get much out of it, even though I’ve actually read the book (although in English).

It might be like Nattou. The first time I ate it I wanted to throw up, but the second time it tasted great. I’ve not given up on the Noh deal yet, but I’m quite skeptical it’ll be an art form that I’ll ever truly appreciate.

(20°C = 68F)

Anyway, some of the language students in my school literally go there every day. It’s quite different from the shoebox apartments we all have, and they have air conditioning and a café and so on. And besides, as I already mentioned, it’s a truly pretty place.

It’s got a number of things related to “internationality”, if that’s a word, among others a T.V. running american news channels, as well as a big posting/bulletin board where people can have notes set up regarding various things, such as English teaching lessons.

It so happens that I put a note up on that board today regarding English lessons. It wasn’t a very good note, so I doubt I’ll get many responses, but they only keep them up for 3 weeks anyway so I’m going to put another one up around the beginning of October.

In any case, I’m now looking for English students here in Japan. I know it may sound odd to some of you that a non-native English speaker is teaching English, but the mistakes I do make are on such a different level from these people (whose primary concern tends to be “where to put in an ‘a’ or ‘an’, and where not to”) that the mistakes I make are more or less completely unrelated to their current “education”.

In any case, wish me many happy and simple students who wants to pay me lots of money for doing very little. *grins*

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!

Arrival, a little before noon.

The first thing you did when you arrived was a small cleansing ritual (simply washing your hands and mouth with water from some… thing.

The cleansing thing. You can see a number of little “scoops” with which you gather water, pour it over your one hand, then over the other, and then finally take a sip from it, and spit it out into the area below (surrounded by the gray stone).

There was a pretty cute little map over the whole area. It’s a link so you can click it to see a more sized-up version if you are curious.

Map over the Fushimi inari-taisha (伏見稲荷大社).

I’d make a modified version with a red line following the path I took but you know, I honestly don’t really know where we ended up going. It is quite a lot bigger than it looks on that map, though. I think we walked around for an hour or so, but on that map, we may have moved a few inches or three.

One of the things I particularly love about Japan is the ancient “monster-culture”, or however you wanna call it. There are monsters in every society’s history (ogres or whatever), but the Japanese one stands out somehow. I’m afraid it may have to do with Nintendo.

“Hi.” (This fellow was guarding the entrance to the place, if I recall. Pretty imposing when you’re standing there being stared down at, to be honest.)

I have a hard time finding beauty in structures, but I must admit things like the above strike me as beautiful. I can look at something and often think “Oh. How quaint.” but that’s as far as it gets.

Or how about this one. Gorgeous, if you ask me. Or maybe I’m just Japanophilic.

You found things like this all over the place, as if someone had indifferently strewn them out over the floor without a thought. Incredibly beautiful, and sometimes only noticeable within a single step, in between a narrow path leading away from the main one you’re trekking on. I can’t imagine how many things I missed as I walked there. It’s as if they’re made to be walked again, and again, and each time you’re meant to discover new things.

There’s me, and uh, my girlfriend, who’s hiding. Behind me. As you can see, I’m wearing a Skotos t-shirt (“Why Yes. I am God.”)  — still faithful, after all these years. We are standing against one of the many, many red pillars making the gates (torii, I believe they’re called). These things did never, ever end. I can’t imagine just how many of them there were. This place is one of the more famous ones, so you may have seen it on TV or so, if you haven’t been here personally.

You found these occasionally, i.e. the torii-path splitting up into two directions. Oh and there’s me, too. Look how white my skin is. I’ll be scorched this summer, I just know it.

Another map. There were a variety of maps over the place around the place so you could sort of see where you were. I like these for some reason. A billion times cooler than some computer-made “You Are Here” map.

Another “hidden” spot that you would easily miss if you weren’t looking to the sides all the time. Their unobtrusiveness makes spotting them feel almost sinful, and taking pictures felt like stealing something precious from somebody. But I took a picture anyway. I hope the gods won’t mind (actually, if I understood papa-san correctly, this whole area is dedicated to the god of trade — so by showing you this, you might feel enticed to visit, which the god of trade can’t argue with, now can s/he?).

Ooh, a flower. *snap*

Speaking of flowers, I’m going to try to get the pictures up from Ten-something-something that I went to before. I forgot the name (heh), but it was more or less a collection of gardens. Incredibly gorgeous, and if you happen to like flowers and plants, you’d be in the die-now-happily state. I personally don’t really like flowers that much, but being there and seeing all the gardens and arrangements made me appreciate our flowery friends on a whole new level.

Something that you tend to find everywhere in Kyoto, especially in places like these, are the tiny little streets that stretch out in every direction. Their love for octopus might have inspired them, who knows. Or maybe it’s that they’ve been far more preservative over their heritage from the old times than we have, in Sweden. Regardless, I hate to sound conservative but I completely adore these.

A gang of… monster-dogs. Or are they bulldogs, the guys in the middle row? No, they look more like goblins.

The last image. Buddha stuffs. There were lots of it all over the place, but this one was particularly large and … goldey.

That’s it for now. I’ll try to get the Ten-something-something pictures up as soon as possible. Oh, and I’ll figure out the name of Ten-something-something as well. I think I’ve got a brochure lying around here somewhere with it written on.