Jidai Matsuri ni itta (fee form)

If you happen to be in Japan at the time of this parade through the imperial gardens, it is truly a sight to see. Two hours of processions with costumed people from each era of Japanese history attract hundreds of Japanese and foreign tourists. On another note, it is neither short nor does it move quickly, announcements are entirely in Japanese (as expected), and the seating situation probably varies by year - this year, the parade was postponed one day because of rain, and the seating area (blankets on the ground) seemed to have been set up despite the rain...In fact, today started out so glaringly sunny that I worried I wouldn't make it through the parade, and ended up raining by the end. I wasn't adverse to the shade. 

At any rate, I have far more pictures than I can place here, some of them blurry (thank you camera) and some quite interesting. I will post the ones that I like the most, or that caught my eye when I was scrolling through, or simply that I had a thought about - I didn't think through all of them, evidently. This horse was one of many, but was a particularly handsome fellow. He watched us as he walked by, and I could just see how curious he thought it that hundreds of people were lined up to watch him walk by. Unlike some of the other horses, he was neither slavering nor clearly unwilling to cooperate. 

In fact, he was strikingly unlike the horse pictured above, who was so unhappy that I had to include him. He yelled at us, turned around, and yelled at the rest of the crowd, too. I thought he was going to knock his handler over, but he seemed content enough with her. There was another horse that held up the parade for a good while, too - they couldn't get him to move, even with five people pushing!

Scenes like this one abounded before the start of the parade. I would recommend getting there early to walk around and see the grounds and the people, but not too early. It gets a bit long if you start out waiting - like me - sitting on the wet blanket for half an hour before it starts. I enjoyed myself though, especially since I ended up in conversation with two Japanese people sitting beside me, one a university teacher and one a monk...supposedly :)




The clothing was gorgeous. I sometimes had to laugh, though, such as here:

Whose train do you think they're holding? Maybe a very ornately clothed bride's, I would think.

But no, it's his. Haha. I giggled a bit. Sorry trendy Japanese people of the past. You can laugh at me, too, and I'm sure you wouldn't be alone considering my sense of fashion.

I also laughed a bit at this man after staring in disbelief. His horns, I'm pretty sure, were made of cardboard. I can only imagine the neck muscles on the man whose horns were made of metal. Impressive.

Unfortunately, seeing this made me more sad than anything else. I was thinking that there were probably boys this age sent off to war around the world in this era. Everyone walked in perfect step, and I wondered if their facial expressions weren't also fairly reminiscent of those of old - this is tough and long and why are we doing this again?
Or maybe they were cooler than that. There was one guy who came later holding a sign (among many others holding the same sign in the same clothes) and he was the only one smiling. It looked a bit awkward, but in a good way, like he was just so happy he didn't know what to do with himself, or he wasn't sure what he was supposed to be doing with his face. I giggled with that man. I liked him best.

I want a parasol. People actually use them here. She is a beautiful woman, and her kimono suits her well. What more can I say?

The outfits were all amazing. It was a joy to watch. There were people behind this guy carrying kyudou bows. I know kyudou is a very old sport in Japan, and they were from a very early age, so it was fun to see them dressed for a sport that I am learning as well. Their clothing was not that different from mine.

There were also many structures carried by the various performers, like this palaquin.

Then there were people like these who actually did perform. They sang and danced, performing impressive feats and waving their fans at the audience. It was fun.
 I enjoyed the parts of the procession accompanied by music the most although there were relatively few of them. The priests and warriors were fun to hear as well because of the clank of their staffs or armor - the monks in particular dragged their staffs through the gravel in a way that made a very neat noise. Anyway, it was fun. I bought yatsuhashi while I was there to eat on the bus to Tokyo. Most likely, my next post will be about the most sparkling, famous city in Japan. Look forward to it.