祇園祭 [Gion Festival] (14.07~17.07)

Though 祇園祭 (Gion Matsuri) actually lasts the entire month of July, most of the festivities people visit occur during this crucial weekend from the Friday on the 14th of July up until Tuesday (17th), when the floats are actually paraded through the city. We actually went to the festival on Monday, which was 海の日 (umi no hi -- Ocean Day), a national holiday. So, we took a break from our lab work and went out to play!

Here's a picture of David-san's breakfast. It's so cute!


Anyways... *cough*
リーさん (Ly-san) and 市川さん (Ichikawa-san) were nice enought to join us in Kyoto for the festival. Beforehand, we tried to get to Kyoto earlier in order to enjoy the festivities and explore the city more. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that earlier that day, there was a big earthquake!

Here is a picture of what we saw on TV (courtesy of BBC).


Basically, we didn't know what was going on, because everything we saw on TV looked like this, which meant nothing to us. We could recognize the words "earthquake," but we didn't know where, nor did we feel anything. We were also hypothesizing tha some of the mudslides we saw on "breaking news"during our lunch were from the typhoon? It was old news to most (but news to us) that the typhoon totally missed Japan and the current natural disaster is an earthquake!!! Anyways, I guess that's one downfall about being a foreigner. :) This all made sense, because all the trains of the JR lines were cancelled that day it there was "organized chaos" in the train/subway station (they're joined together here in Japan). I say organized chaos, because things in Japan can never really be chaotic. I should have taken a picture, but I think we were trying too hard to catch a train that was cancelled (and announced many,many times on the loudspeaker that it was cancelled) to Kyoto. The display for the trains showed that they were delayed by 15 mins!!! All of them!!!! Hahaha. According to Japanese guidebooks, trains/busses/subways are NEVER late. Being 10+ minutes late was unheard of. It was then that we realized that something big must have happened. I think the earthquake upturned an JR rail. I'm not sure myself, but we saw pictures. Anyways, because they were worried about the integrity of the train tracks, the JR Lines were all cancelled and the train station officials directed us kindly to the Hankyu Line (fully-private train line). It wasn't at the station we were in, 新大阪 (Shin-Osaka), so we had to take the 御堂筋線 (Midousuji Line) down to 西中島南方駅 (Nishinakajima-Minamigata Station). That was a handful to remember, but luckily, the station officer was nice enough to write down the kanji and we followed that to the right place. The horde of people who also missed the JR Line were on those subways with us. However, they didn't get off at that station.

We were confused. Nonetheless, we caught our Hankyu train headed for Kyoto. We switched at the nearest large station of the super fast train to Kyoto. Each train has many speeds, new-super-quick, super-quick, quick, regular/local (direct translation from Mandarin, because I still cannot read kanji in Japanese!). Anyways, it's just a way to differentiate how many stops each train makes. We changed to the new-super-quick train to Kyoto. It was sooooo packed. Seriously, I was afraid I wouldn't make it on the train, but luckily (unluckily?) one of the train officials said "すみません!" (sorry) and pushed me on the train filled with people before using his bare hands to help close the door. It was truly... AMAZING! Anyways, I've never being soo squished and packed before! (Keep in mind, that we were going to a major festival and one of the train lines was completely cancelled). Anyways, we finally figured out where the sea of people went. They went to the very first stop which this train started at (梅田駅) so they would have a nice place to stand and perhaps (if they are lucky enough), a place to sit? Truly AMAZING!

The first thing we did in Kyoto was visit was to see 銀閣寺 (Ginkaku Temple). The grandson of 足利義満 (Ashikaga Yoshimitsu), 足利義政 (Ashikaga Yoshimasa), built this Pavilion after 金閣寺 (Kinkauji Temple--Golden Pavilion Temple). Anyways, Jason-san, my mentor at UCSD, recommended this place to us. He said it was less famous to foreigners, but He liked the Silver Pavilion Temple better than the Golden Pavilion. I would have to say that all us PRIME kids agree with him! :) Plus, there were less foreigners here (just as he said!). Well... except us? :D




In Kyoto, it was raining really hard when we got there, so me and Ava-san got ourselves each another 100 円 (hyaku-yen) umbrella. Too bad the rain stopped early on during the day. There were so many people in 浴衣 (yukatas), and they were all so very pretty! Again, from Jason-san's wise words, he said that it was amazing how in Japan, you can find a mix of culture. People may dress like Western culture with their collared shirts and jeans, but then you'll see someone in a 着物 (Kimino) or a Yukata. BTW, one thing I noticed on this trip is that though people wear jeans and navy blue dress pants, I have yet to see a Japanese person wearing khakis! Just a personal observation. I'd be happy to prove myself wrong later. :)



At the department store, there were model floats on display. Basically there were 12 (I think?) of these floats, each one unique, that were displayed on the streets with performers on the top. They were performing songs for the gods, I think?


The festivities were all along 四条 & 烏丸 (shijo & karasuma -- street names). Below is a picture of one of the floats. We


Ly-san got herself a 玉子煎餅 (Tamako Senbei), which was basically an egg pancake? Her egg was so cute though! It was in the shap of a heart! Here is cute Ly-san with her cute dinner!


There are a lot of festival games that you would see in anime. This one guy had a dart game booth.


Here are some cute kids that was playing a game where you catch balls with rice paper! So cute!


Then, there are some not-so-cute kids wanting to play the same game... -_-||| I believe we concluded that Ava-san was 3 years old and Ichikawa-san was 8 years old......


They were so happy with their flashy, gawdy prizes, I took a picture for keepsake. ^^v


Later that night, we visited 八坂神社 (Yasaka Shrine), the temple for the god the festival is dedicated to.


There was a performance that we were lucky enough to catch. It was music for the gods, 神楽 (shinraku). Pretty neat, huh?


By the end of the day, we were tired, and we caught our train back to our comfortable apartments. :) 楽しかったでしたね〜