Gion Matsuri Pictures - Finally!
I finally got some time last night - well, this morning - and finished sorting through the bulk of the Gion festival pictures. This morning (after some sleep) I went through and captioned them, did some final processing, and now they're up in the gallery. Maybe not the best selection if you just care about the festival, but I was excited by the festival as I was by all the gear people were using.
Most of the pictures make sense, but these two require a little explanation. These bizarre things at left are used to make sure the float stays floating forward. It allows a guy on each side to turn the float ever so slightly so that the float doesn't end up driving off into a building or something. I originally thought that it was so the wheels wouldn't fall off or something, but it's nothing quite so stupid.
These girls were part of the three kids' floats that I swear were chasing Aaron and I around. At first, we got a little lost, heard drums, and decided to see what was going on. So we saw them, got some pictures, and left.
Then, we got where we were trying to go
, and right as we were about to go into the store, we heard them come around the corner.
When we came out of that store, they were back. Going into another store, they were still stomping around.
We come out of that store half an hour later and they come around the corner again. Creepy stalker munchkins.
Anyway, the festival was decently fun, and I got some mango ice cream.
In other news, the point of the festival is to protect the citizens of Kyoto from some disease that was rather endemic at the time. Some of the floats have spear-shaped things on top, and this is theoretically to kill the evil spirits, I think. We got all the history and stuff about a week ago, and I was really only interested in taking pictures. I need not worry, though, as I think 80% of the population of Kyoto was taking pictures.
Anyway, the festival itself is a week-long event, but the parade is sort of the climax. I was too busy with school stuff to go to any of it, except this, which they canceled school for.
Anyway, check out the gallery for a bunch of pictures.
Most of the pictures make sense, but these two require a little explanation. These bizarre things at left are used to make sure the float stays floating forward. It allows a guy on each side to turn the float ever so slightly so that the float doesn't end up driving off into a building or something. I originally thought that it was so the wheels wouldn't fall off or something, but it's nothing quite so stupid.These girls were part of the three kids' floats that I swear were chasing Aaron and I around. At first, we got a little lost, heard drums, and decided to see what was going on. So we saw them, got some pictures, and left.
Then, we got where we were trying to go
, and right as we were about to go into the store, we heard them come around the corner.When we came out of that store, they were back. Going into another store, they were still stomping around.
We come out of that store half an hour later and they come around the corner again. Creepy stalker munchkins.
Anyway, the festival was decently fun, and I got some mango ice cream.
In other news, the point of the festival is to protect the citizens of Kyoto from some disease that was rather endemic at the time. Some of the floats have spear-shaped things on top, and this is theoretically to kill the evil spirits, I think. We got all the history and stuff about a week ago, and I was really only interested in taking pictures. I need not worry, though, as I think 80% of the population of Kyoto was taking pictures.
Anyway, the festival itself is a week-long event, but the parade is sort of the climax. I was too busy with school stuff to go to any of it, except this, which they canceled school for.
Anyway, check out the gallery for a bunch of pictures.
posted by William at
7/23/2008 12:26:00 PM
10 Comments:
Sounds fun!
Er...how do I get to the other pictures in the gallery? I know you've had a link to gallery in other posts and perhaps there is something here that I am just not seeing yet.
It works for me. Try again?
I see it has 3 links to it now. I guess I got here too early. :) Thanks for sharing all the happy pictures!!!
:)
Wow! Fabulous! As usual for your photos! :) I especially like the
three guys standing around on top of the float with poles, doing...something.
Beautiful tapestries...
I also like the contraption used to board the floats and the sea of cameras.
:)
Stalking munchkins, call in an air strike!
The air strike puts me in mind of a children's church activity I attended once. Someone from church owned an airplane from which they repeatedly flew fairly low over the gathered crowd of children, showering various candies on them each pass. The first time...the children were delighted and ran for the candy. However, as many realized they were being pelted with Tootsie Pops and Starburst pieces, which actually left small bruises on some of the children, they began to run for cover as the plane went to make its second pass. The plane flew over about 8 times.
"CCU Away! Good patterns, good hits! They're going for cover, bring it around!"
Very nice pics! i was just wandering where the other 600? this ones were the top 50?
In one of the first pictures you have a float with a tapestry of foreigners with clothing of maybe around 16th century, do you remember the name of that float?
You can have the other 600, but I have limited Web space, so it didn't seem like a good idea to try and upload 2GB of pictures to my 1GB of available space.
Hey, I wanna look at other 600, also...
:)
Like your pictures!
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