2010.07.17 Gion Matsuri, Toei Eigamura

Sad to say, the decision to try wear geta 'straight out of the box' was not a well thought out one. Granted, I wouldn't look right wearing sneakers or running shoes with a jinbei but as soon as I put on the geta, all my bad premonitions seemed to come true.

Despite the issue with the geta, what I could see of the Gion Matsuri was fairly impressive. To see such large wooden-wheeled carts the size of buildings being pulled down the street by men was unbelievable, especially when realizing this sort of thing has done on for a thousand years!

So many people!


I don't know what the guys on the roof do but that has to be scary standing on a 3 story tall cart with wooden wheels in the hot sun with no harness or anything.

There were also people making ice sculpture replicas of the shrines!

Bought a pair of sandals at the station but, eventually they started hurting my feet even worse since they were hard rubber and had ridges meant to 'massage' the wearer's feet!

Since the festival ended early, the next stop was Toei Eigamura to see the ninja show and Kamen Rider/Super Sentai stuff! Due to the Gion Matsuri, all people wearing yukata were given a 50% discount on their tickets. Unfortunately for me, jinbei didn't count.

Super Sentai pics:




Kind of makes me want to start watching some tokusatsu!

Actually, I just started watching Samurai Sentai Shinkenger and aside from the cheesiness, it isn't bad. I doubt this one will be ruined by Saban because it's too Japanese. Their helmets have kanji on them and their phones turn into calligraphy pens to facilitate transformation.




Outside the refuge of the air conditioning were several recreations of jidaigeki-like buildings.




Looks like a recreation of the Yoshiwara, possibly?

The ninja show was amazing, although I think photo/video was forbidden due to safety reasons. Last thing anyone probably wants to see is someone get hurt due to being blinded by a camera flash.

Despite the insistence of the people at the Kyoto visitors office, there was in fact a mikoshi happening at Yasaka Shrine that night according to the taxi driver. Unfortunately for me, my feet had given up at this point and I was forced to retire before getting to see it. All the streets had been blocked off and the sidewalks were packed! At this point I just started walking barefoot down the street near the hills leading up to Kiyomizu-dera until I could flag down a taxi driver to take me to Kyoto Station.

Got my Thunderbird tickets but neglected to get a receipt. Hobbled back to the hotel and got off my feet as soon as possible.