This weekend, Kitano-Tenman-gu was having a four day festival. We were
able to catch the promenade’s return to the temple on Monday.
The Zuiki
Matsuri is a harvest festival meant to bring great fortune. Rather than
just being a stationary festival however, the festival is a parade
lasting four days, returning back to the temple on the last day, which
is the day we were able to attend. There were a bunch of nice people
directing us to where we needed to be, and when people saw my camera,
they immediately started pointing us down a tiny street where Maiko were
rumored to be. Maiko, for those that don’t know, are apprentice geisha.
Their dress is typically more colorful, and they sometimes wear red
fabric swatches in their hair.
Anyway, they were indeed there, so we
were able to get a look at the famed women of Japan. It was pretty cool,
I have to admit, except we weren’t in the best location as they were
pretty consistently facing the professional photographers. It was nice
to see them outside of Gion, the original geisha district, since there
were less tourists there.
The
matsuri’s parade was pretty short itself, and is summed up better with
the pictures in my October 2010 gallery. However, my favorite part of
the parade were the little children dressed up as shrine maidens and
feudal lords. There were even a few Genji in there. ♥