Sanjusangendo archery

Every year on the Sunday closest to the 15th there is an archery competition at Sanjusangendo- the temple of 1000 Kannon on Nana-jo south of Kiyomizu. This dates to the 1600's when the competition was to shoot the entire length of the temple. Nowadays you only have to hit a target half the length, still a difficult task from what I saw. Anyway, the event is from 9-3:30 and there are thousands of contestants who give it a try. The contestants are usually people who became 20 this last year and thus who celebrated coming-of-age on Seijin no hi. They appeared to be members of archery clubs from colleges across Japan. It was worth it just to see the kimono they had on (the same one's they wore for their coming of age ceremony earlier in the week I am sure), but the archery made it especially cool. Part way through they switched to a few rounds with really good archers and smaller targets. They still had difficulty, but hit the targets much more often than the 20 year olds before them. We only stayed for about an hour, but were glad to have seen it. It was crowded, but we were able to find a place to watch a little of it on the stands about midway across the field.
Also, FYI the entrance fee to the temple is free on this day and they have several stands for Tai-yaki, okonomiyaki, tako-yaki, sweets and so on for hungry kids.

More cultural activities

So we went to the Zuiki matsuri and I must say it was one of my favorite matsuri I've been to. We watched it in the Kamishichiken area along with some Kyoto maiko. It was also nice to be so close to the procession. I'll try to post some photos from it soon. We also participated in a local matsuri at E's school. This is E at the matsuri. That was fun and we got to carry the mikkoshi. We are looking forward to the Kurama fire festival on the 22nd of October. That afternoon is also the Jidai festival- one of Kyoto's biggest. We'll see if we can make it to both, but if we had to choose we'll go to the Kurama one. Kurama is one of our favorite places in Kyoto- a great place to hike and get out of the city. The fall is beautiful up there.

Cultural activities

So every so often we like to go out and do something cultural in this very cultural city. That said, we'd been here over a month before we even went to a single temple. One highlight so far has been the Moon viewing festivals for Jugoya. On the actual Jugoya we went to a local shrine- the Hirano Jinja to see the lanterns, look for the moon through the clouds and listen to some really nice koto music. The kids were pretty good and since it was an outdoor performance as long as they weren't too loud they could wander around while we listened. Our oldest said it was not quite happy music and not quite sad music, but that it made you think of long ago. I don't think I could have said it better myself. The shrine was really beautiful all lit up at night. We also went to the moon viewing in Daikakuji. This lasts for three days so we thought we could see two. It was a very long bike ride from our home to Arashiyama- longer than we expected. But even E was good natured about it. Once there the shrine was really nice and they had some food available in stalls on the grounds- we had some mochi treats. For a fee we could have ridden a boat on the pond while drinking tea. That would have been nice, but not really kid friendly. Again there was some nice music including some classical chamber music. On the way home we saw a film crew at a nearby lake filming a night-time flood scene. I wonder what that was about?
We have also tried Tenjin-san. This is the monthly flea market at Kitano Tenmangu. Getting there early is definitely advisable. The kids enjoyed the matsuri food in the stalls and looking at the interesting wares for sale. They were especially intrigued by the games where you can win toys.
This week there is the Zuiki matsuri (festival) at Kitano Tenmangu. E has been learning about it in school and has even been on a field trip to see them harvesting the zuiki (taro stalks) for the portable shrines. I'll let you know how it goes.