Festivals and Some History

Now that my asthma has finally chilled out, I have time to write about my awesome festival experience on Tuesday.

After a hellish midterm, Claire and I skipped afternoon classes and went to Kyoto. The 22 happens to be a pretty big day in terms of festivals. In Kyoto, there is the Jidai Matsuri, or Festival of the Ages, and just up the mountain from Kyoto is the Kurama Hi Matsuri, or Kurama Fire Festival.

At about 1:40 Claire and I rushed out of Sanjo Station to the sounds of the procession passing by. The Jidai Matsuri, or what we saw of it, is a giant parade that goes from the Imperial Palace to Heian Shrine. The people in the parade dress as people from Japanese history between the eras that Kyoto was the capital. The festival started in the 1890s when the capital and palace of the emperor was moved to Tokyo. Let me be honest, even Claire and I, who love Japanese history, had no clue what the hell was going on for most of it. The ladies in front of us for awhile would discuss the different eras, but we couldn't quite place them chronologically. What we did know is that after an hour and a half, Heian Jidai popped up and we knew that that was practically at the very beginning, so we figured that this was a very long parade. Well, just tonight at dinner my host mom explained that it goes from recent history to ancient history. So we DID see the Meiji Restoration soldiers~!!! AND SAKAMOTO RYOUMA! And even better, I'm about 99% sure we saw TOMOE, my favourite character in the Heike Monogatari!!!! Her story in short: she was a samurai retainer under Minamoto Yoshinaka and before his death he told her to get lost because he didn't want to die with a girl. So she ran into battle, yanked off some guys head to honor Yoshinaka and then rode off into the hill where she shed her armor and disappeared. Seriously, how cool is she?

After thinking we still had hours of the parade left (when it was probably only a few more minutes), we left to go on a small adventure before heading to Kurama. Where did we go? MIBU DERA. What is Mibu Dera? The headquarters of the Shinsengumi. But who are the Shinsengumi? In short: one of, if not the, most dangerous police forces in Japanese history. It essentially started when a group of guys became friends of the owner of a dojo up in Edo (now Tokyo). The friends all eventually became the owners retainers (kinda, but not really since he's not an actual samurai). Then they all joined this army that marched to Kyoto (the capital at the time) to protect the Shogun. The army returned to Edo when the Shogun left, but a group stayed in Kyoto and became the Shinsengumi. Their job was to police the streets and keep the rogue samurai of other clans from causing trouble. They did a lot of great things and a lot of bad things. If this were any other country in the world, they would probably be villains since they lost the civil war of the Restoration, but they are actually pretty popular here, as is their enemy Sakamoto Ryouma. I love the Shinsengumi. I love reading about them. I'm currently watch a phenomenal drama about them. Seriously, they are just the coolest.

So we went to their headquarters. It was literally just a normal temple. And that probably made it even cooler. Not really a lot of touristy stuff. There was a guy there who I'm pretty sure was dressed as Okita Souji, my favourite member. He was with two friend in kimono and they were taking pictures. Claire and I thought it was hilarious. On the temple grounds they have a garden that costs the best 100￥ I've ever spent to get in. It is a very quite and peaceful place, even if you don't like/care about the Shinsengumi. They have a pond with turtle and koi, a stone with a song carved into it that my host mom just read and said it was quite sad, which, from listening to her mumble it, yeah, it's sad. I mean, seeing as how they pretty much all died horrible deaths during the Restoration.... Yeah.... There is also a bust of Kondo Isami, the founder and head of the Shinsengumi. He would be the guy that owned the dojo in Edo.
On our way back to the train station we passed a place that we realized was the museum. Sadly, things like that close early and it was already 4:30/5:00 at that time so we couldn't go in. But I am planning on doing a project on them, so I'll go back soon probably~

After that we met our friend Ali for dinner at an Indian restaurant. It was yummy but the guys who ran it couldn't hear the difference between 'check' and 'chai' and also couldn't understand us when we tried to explain it in English or Japanese, neither of which they seemed to speak very well. So we ended up with 400￥ chai. Oh well.

The Kurama Hi Matsuri is a huge festival held every year in Kurama. People parade through the streets with lots of fire. They start with small torches and the progressively get bigger until they take two or three people to carry on their backs. It really sucks for the person in back because the fire and ash is falling onto their bare backs. They would shout to the nearby helpers who would help douse them in water to keep from burning. Despite that, everyone seemed to having a great time! The only drawback was the ridiculous amount of police officers crowding people into certain areas. I understand that it's tough to deal with huge crowds flocking to a small village at night, but we were in that village for almost 4 hours and only walked a bit down one road before we had to go home to catch the last trains to Osaka.
Okay, actually there are two drawbacks, the second being I sometimes forget I have asthma? All the ash and smoke triggered it pretty bag and I had a couple fits in the village and quite a few more the next morning. I also lost my voice, which meant I didn't have to talk in class for a day~ Yay~!!

Claire and I had a bit before the train left so Ali, who lives in Kyoto, took us to the palace. We didn't have enough time to really see it, and it was dark and stuff. It was really fun walking around Kyoto at night though, and Ali is a great tour guide!