I've only been here for two months, and I swear that every time I turn around there is some kind of traditional festival or 'matsuri' going on, and half the time I run into these matsuris without even trying to. Granted, Tokyo is a modern city, considering it was bombed to the ground a few decades ago, but there are still many places that still hold to the traditional Japanese way of life.
One such place is Kawagoe, and they just happened to have their annual grand matsuri yesterday. Kawagoe is also known as 'Little Edo', since Tokyo once went by the name 'Edo', much in the same way that Istanbul was once Constantinople. Kawagoe is famous for its traditional architecture reflecting of the Edo era -- and for their sweet potato beer -- and their grand matsuri draws tens of thousands of people every year.
The matsuri consists of a street parade of floats, many of which are over 200 years old and have been designated as national heritage treasures of Japan. Each float has two or three levels. The bottom level has musicians playing traditional instruments, such as drums and flutes, as well as a dancer with a specific mask. The top level has a life-sized doll, often representing a shogun or a warrior. The floats, which are made out of wood, are all very uniquely and ornately decorated.
Isn't he handsome? Pucker up baby!
There are dozens of floats that take different routes on the streets, each one different.
Above, a float goes past the famous wooden Bell Tower of Kawagoe.
Above is a close up of one of the dolls on the top of the float.
More dancing, with a Japanese fan in hand.
There were also loads of people participating in the festival who wore traditional clothes.
These ladies knew that everyone was trying to get a picture of them, but they absolutely refused to look at the camera or pose. Personally, I have a feeling the one in the middle isn't a lady at all.
And these very cute little girls also shyed away from the camera, but I managed to get one of them to look at me!
The streets are all insanely crowded as the floats are quite large and the streets are quite small! On the side of the roads, people were selling all kinds of things, like sweet potato fries, sweet potato candies, sweet potato fries, and sweet potato beer. But sweet potatoes were not the only thing on the menu -- what would a street parade be without octopus balls?
Eventually I started to feel claustrophobic in the teeming mass of human traffic, so I got away from the festival route and went searching for another Kawagoe attraction -- the Kitain Temple with its famous 'Gohyakurakan', or 500 Disciples. Finding this temple was quite a challenge, since I can't read kanji and they didn't have any signs in English.
So first I went into a big temple, hoping it would be Kitain, where I stumbled upon this very disturbing statue:
What is up with Anorexic Buddha!!!!!!! How can anyone so emaciated achieve enlightenment? I really wish I could have read the sign, so I suppose it will sadly remain a mystery.
I then walked around in the temple garden, and found these little guys:
I thought, maybe this IS the Kitain Temple, but a quick head count of these little dudes told me that these couldn't be the 500 Disciples, so off I went.
On the street, I saw a bunch of tourists heading in the same direction, and where there are tourists, there are tourist attractions, so like a stalker I followed them, and lo and behold, they led me right to Kitain Temple, and the Garden of 500 Disciples. But unfortunately, they were about to lock the garden! While the attendant was locking the entrance, myself and two French students ran around the back and snuck in the exit while no one was looking.
I was only able to stay for a minute or two, but I did get a few pictures. Apparently the story with the 500 Disciples, in a nutshell, is that each one in the garden represents a different human emotion, so each one has a different face, some are holding certain objects such as fish, and some are in various stages of relaxation, anger, excitement and embarassment. In the picture above, I'm not too sure about the emotion of the one on the left, but the one on the right looks like he is mildly constipated.
'Oh god.. what have I done.... WHAT HAVE I DONE????? SOB!!!!!!'
After being ejected from the garden, I wandered around the temple grounds. At all temples, you can get a fortune paper, but if you get a bad fortune, you are supposed to take it and tie it onto these metal lines so that the bad fortune doesn't come true. The bad fortunes really are bad... they usually say 'employment is bad, marriage is bad, travel is bad', and I should know because I've taken my fortune twice and both times they were bad!
Extreme close up of awfully bad luck.
After that, I was totally exhausted, my feet hurt, I was ready to kill the next person to bump into me, so in a nutshell, I got out of Kawagoe, jumped on the train and went home.
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