Kyoto - Gion Matsuri / Sightseeing

17th July, 2007

We woke up bright and early ready to find a spot on the street so that we could watch the parade. There were 32 floats being pulled down the street. It was amazing watching these men pull such heavy floats. They must have so much strength and energy to be able to do it. We were standing on a corner so we were able to see how they actually turned the floats. This required a lot of effort as they had to lay out bamboo, wet it and then push the float so that it slid. This process was repeated about 3 times until it was facing the right way. I thought that this festival was fantastic and I am glad that I was able to experience it. Out of the 32 floats we watched about 10 as we wanted to go and show our guests some other parts of Kyoto before it was time to head back.

Yoko one of Japanese friends was with us at the festival and she acted as our tour guide for the day. She took us to some amazing places. We found some bikes to hire and decided to sight see on bikes which was a much easier option. Our first stop was Seiryo-Ji. This was quite a big temple and looked magnificent.


The next place we went to was Adashino-Nenbutsu-Ji. This had a graveyard in it and a big bamboo forest. It looked awesome.



We then rode to Gio-Ji. In here was a moss covered garden that looked really cool. Very beautiful and green. There was a little room which looked out onto the garden.



Our last stop was Togetsukyo Bridge. There was an amazing view here with the river and the mountains in the background. It looked stunning.



Our day was very jam packed but we got to see so many beautiful things all thanks to Yoko. I really enjoyed riding around on bikes to get to the sites – it is a very fun, healthy way of doing it.