I love this place.

A little shrine to pray for safe childbirth.

Update: This was demolished in March a week after I took the photo.

Part 1, mostly the area around Manshu-in Temple in  Sakyo-ku.

Michael Lambe of Deep Kyoto has been writing for a few months on a shortsighted scheme under way in Kyoto City, selling off part of Umekoji Park near Kyoto Station to Orix Corporation to build an aquarium. Today he has a guest column on the Japan Today website.
There are many reasons why Kyoto doesn’t need an aquarium, starting with the fact that there is already a large, well-known aquarium in neighboring Osaka, WHICH IS A PORT CITY where an aquarium makes some sense. Kyoto Prefecture’s port is far away beyond …

I was surprised the other day to read in the news a brief story about the Kyoto team in the Girls Professional Baseball League, not only because I didn’t know that Kyoto had a team, but also because I didn’t know there was a league for women (or “Girls,” as they put it). So I went digging, and there is a website for the team, the Kyoto Asto Dreams, but I couldn’t find league standings, only results for Kyoto’s  games against one team, the Hyogo Swing Smileys. (Don’t you like …

This is the Daimonji Fire Festival video for 2010. 9 minutes, 16:9.

2010 Daimonji Fire Festival Video is here.
Video coming tomorrow. Here are some screengrabs in the meantime. Got home too late to do the whole edit tonite. Refer to previous post for details.

2010 Daimonji Fire Festival Video is here.
 
Daimonji video 2008
 
Every August 16 since the 1600s, Kyoto marks the end of o-Bon season by lighting up the hillsides with giant kanji, starting at 8 p.m. It’s called Daimonji Gozan Okuribi, literally “Giant characters five mountains sendoff fires.” This marks their function as a sendoff for the ancestral spirits that visit their hometowns in the summer festival season. I walked by the myou and hou characters today and saw two others in the distance in the clear skies. The firewood is already in …

the Toki Matsuri pottery fair at Gojo-zaka is on through Tuesday, Gojo street between
http://www.toukimaturi.gr.jp/

September 2010 Update: Exhibition has moved to Cafe Dell’ Orso for September-October 2010
Weekends in August 12:00-18:00 at Hanagumo Bar on Miyagawacho in Gion, Kyoto.  Party Saturday, Aug. 7, Closed Aug. 8.
All my photos were taken by my ketai camera as I work and play around Kyoto and Osaka mostly. It’s my Nippon world, but I feel like the viewer, not really part of the parade. I think I look a little shocked and mystified by what I see in each photo. Please come and visit, in the month …