About a month ago, on August 16th (yeah, i`m slow. so what? you wanna fight about it?) Ulala and i decided to check out something in Kyoto that they do once a year and i`ve wanted to check out since i came to Japan. If you`ve been to Kyoto you may have noticed giant Kanji characters (Chinese pictograms) on the sides of some of the mountains that surround town. Well there are five of them in total and once a year at the end of Obon (about mid august) these are lit on fire. Obon is the week-or-so long time when ancestors come back to visit their families. It is a time when ceremonies are held at most temples and also private ceremonies are held by families. Graves are visited and cleaned, offerings are made, and prayers are said. On the last day of Obon there are various special ceremonies to mark the end of this special time (although these days it usually means people come back from their summer vacation and go back to work). One of these is the lighting of massive bonfires to help guide the spirits of the ancestors back to the other world. It`s called "Gozan-okuribi" (but i never remember the full thing so call it "Gozan-something-something and people usually know what i`m referring to). The name literally translates as "Five Mountain Farewell Fire." Superstition and romance are nice and all but i really just wanted to see the giant burning figures on the mountainside. So we arrived early and found a decent place to sit until sunset and then at 8 pm they lit the first one - which was the only one we could see. The we walked back down to the river, where we could see two more. Unfortunately it would be almost impossible walking to see all five in the 30 minutes that they are lit. Oh well. The ones we saw were nice. Unfortunately i have only dark, blurry, terrible pictures because i had to use our old digital camera. Our "new" one is toast after surviving three continents but not my clumsiness. Meh.
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