Honen Matsuri

While I was in Kyoto it was Labour Day back home, so I got a day off work. There was a festival called Honen Matsuri on in Nagoya, which is about an hour away on the Shinkansen so I headed over to check it out.

Like a lot of Japanese festivals the various stalls you see at these things were in attendance.

The usual suspects were there, like a Takoyaki stand with plush octopus

Some of the others were there as well, only in penis themed format

chocolate dipped "bananas"

There were some people in costume

posing with people for photos

Some local women were chosen by lottery to participate

The festival involves a parade from one shrine to another, this is the finish line

The parade route

A flag near the front of the parade

The women who won the lottery get to carry wooden phalluses for the crowd to rub for a blessing

There were some floats being carried

and a cart carrying sake that was being handed to the crowd

I walked along beside the parade and they kept giving me Sake. I stopped at 21 cups.

There was also a large group carrying this giant wooden phallus

Arrival at the Shrine

After the parade was done the officials lined up on a scaffolding and threw mochi to the crowd

some people came prepared

I recommend catching it. Getting hit in the head with a giant mochi hurts.

I caught 6, but I gave one away.

A month worth of food in Kyoto

 For the most part in Kyoto,

Breakfast was a scone and a coffee (or similar), and lunch and dinner were food I bought at the supermarket and cooked in the apartment. What follows is (largely without comment) the various photos of food from the month in Kyoto. (any coffee is coffee I had somewhere other than Story, those photos are in that post)

raspberry yoghurt fanta

I had some people over for Sukiyaki

I didn't actually eat this, the on sale room temperature fish burger wasn't tempting enough

An old lady ran an Okonomiyaki restaurant next door to Story

She made her own Ume-shu

It was excellent

I wouldn't have tried it, except there were a couple of Americans in for coffee the second last morning I was in Kyoto. They were talking about the excellent dinner they had last night, and they were saying "not sure, it was near here. Run by this really old lady" and the woman that runs Story asked "do you mean next door" and the so guy goes outside and comes back in and goes "yeah wow. It was dark I guess"