Day 21, Jidai Matsuri

Matsuri is Japanese for festival. Every city in Japan has multiple festivals throughout the year. They usually originate from (very) old traditions, and often coincidence with the start of a season starts, or plant or harvest periods. Japanese people like to party, and at these festivals they are usually at their most relaxed. Kyoto has many matsuris, a few per month. Today, there were even two, namely the Karuma-hi Matsuri (fire festival), and the Jidai Matsuri. The first takes place in the evening in a small town 30 km from Kyoto, and is difficult to reach (and leave). Therefore, I only went to the Jidai Matsuri.

It is actually a very new festival. It was held for the first time at the end of the 19th century, to commemorate the fact that Kyoto had been the capital for about 1100 years, and had lost it to Tokyo. The festival consists of a 2 hour procession that goes from the Imperial Park to the Heian-jingu shrine. The procession consists of groups of people dressed in historical clothes. The first are from the end of the 19th century, and then it goes back in time until a few centuries AD. It is fun to see, and you can make some nice photos of course. Most of the famous persons from Kyoto’s history feature in the procession. That is, how their soldiers and the people from that era dressed. Anyway, just see for yourself on the photos.

The photos show (from top to bottom):
- a sacred carriage
- court ladies from the Heian era, on a moving platform
- some carriers with a chest
- an ox-driven carriage for the general
- a carriage with the mayor