Hi-Matsuri

Translation: Fire Festival!! Last night Krystal and I went to Kyoto's fire festival. They said that this particualr festival is a good one to watch because ot is one of the more older ones that are still being practiced today. We had to catch two trains but it was worth it seeing all those huge torches being carried. The men and young adults were carrying some 200 pound torches while going up to the shrine. They even had little kids with torches (mini versions) walking up.

Its supposed to be some sort of offering to the god at that particular temple/shrine. The wait was crazy long. When we got ot the station for the train that goes into the mountains the line was uber long! It was like waiting to go on a ride at Dinseyland or something. We only got on the train after about 45 minutes of waiting. Then on the train they were packing us in. The train people were like "mo sukoshi" over and over. We were no where near our personal space. I had about four people leaning on me as well as me leaning on four other people. But because the train was a local one we needed to stop at every stop. The festival just happened to be at the last stop too. So every so often a person waiting at one of the stops would puch his/her/their way into an already packed beyond capacity train. One more tally into the memory banks.

But it was well worth it to be apart of a festival that only happenes once a year since the year 995 I think...


Break It down..hot!