Daimonji Festival

We had a fun time on Thursday evening at the Daimonji festival. Rieko took us to a viewing on top of an office building in souther Kyoto, so we could see all the characters from one spot. There's a trade-off there; we were pretty far away so we couldn't get the best pictures. I put up a few for people to look at: Daimonji Festival. (You'll need to follow the link to see Renee in her kimono.) Alternatively, we could have camped out near one character and watched one very impressive bon-fire up close. We plan to hike up to one of the characters in the future to get a feel for just how big they must be -- the larger "dai" character is carved into a mountain just behind our house, and I see it every afternoon walking home. Taking a complete guess, I'd say it is about 20 meters tall, maybe more.

The festival takes about half an hour, as each of the characters are set on fire one at a time, ending with the "gate" character, which leads the spirits who have visited during Obon back to the spirit world. Rieko's kimono teacher was there, and inspected Renee. After making a few minor adjustments, she was quite satisfied. We had some authentic Japanese snacks before the festival (sorry, no pictures): glazed sweet potatoes, pickled bean curd, and deep-fried rice balls. And Renee discovered soju. Now, in Korea, soju is a 60-proof licorice-flavored liquor that I found just awful. But the version Renee had was cut to about 15-proof and given a citrus flavor. I had to agree it was quite good.

It cooled down after the festival, and we finished the evening at an old coffee shop. I'm sure I'm forgetting some details -- hopefully Renee can fill them in.