Fire Festival

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This festival, one of the three main ones in Kyoto, was rather interesting. However, I think that the Japanese people enjoyed it quite a bit more than I did. I only stayed for the beginning. I think that it's more enjoyable for Japanese people, in part, because their culture is related to the festival. I couldn't figure out what was so exciting about carrying torches, personally. They were chanting what sounded to me like "sai reyo, sai ryo," and I don't know what that means. It was still rather enjoyable. I went to a temple beforehand and, of course, took some pictures.

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Photos

Torch
Prepare to be burned.

Steps
There are so many stairs in this country. At first it was funny...

Temple Area
The leaves are changing color.

Crowds Gathering
There were about 12,000 people who attended the festival that night.

Comments

[Savage]

Stairs
"there are so many stairs in this country, at first it was funny..." hahah Nice! Although I think the stairs are what attributed to me losing basically 1 pound per day during my 10 day visit.

[anonymous]

Phong wrote this!
I was too lazy to figure out where to put my name. Hey I'm stealing one of your pics of Japan, not sure which one yet. Later!

[anonymous]

Alvin! I just wanted to let you know that my very good friend Mara Ghadimi is ALSO at Kansai Gaidai this semester! I told her about you , so she's gonna try to look you up! She's from New Mexico also and is also living with a host family...anyway, hope you guys can meet maybe. Take care! And it was nice to "talk" to you last night!

[anonymous]

Alvin! I just wanted to let you know that my very good friend Mara Ghadimi is ALSO at Kansai Gaidai this semester! I told her about you , so she's gonna try to look you up! She's from New Mexico also and is also living with a host family...anyway, hope you guys can meet maybe. Take care! And it was nice to "talk" to you last night!

[anonymous]

@kansai2
dude.. nice journal. Man, I will move intp hirakata-shi the 22nd of January and before that hang out in Osaka.. this will be my first semester at kansai.. I'll apreciate if we could get in contact or something.. Thanks bro. OJ www.personal.psu.edu/ojb109 [e-mail] - oj