The triumphant return of the Japan blog! (Day 57)

So, I know it's been awhile. Sorry about that. In fact, it's been so long I've actually been stateside for over a month. But there's good news! Even though I didn't post any blog entries for the last couple of months I was in Japan, I did continue to do awesome stuff and take pictures of it! I just got way too busy to take the time to post pictures. Anyway, now I'm working at a job where I have gobs of free time so I'm going to start posting entries almost daily until I've got all the pictures up I want to post. I've got over 2,000 to sort through, so this is gonna take a couple weeks most likely.

Today, we'll start with Aoi Matsuri (葵祭). This Hollyhock Festival is an annual summer festival held in Kyoto. Held on May 15th, It's a parade that starts from the imperial palace and goes all the way to the two Kamo shrines near the Kamogawa river. It started in the mid-6th century as a Shinto ritual to appease the Kamo deities after a succession or disastrous weather events and spreading illnesses occurred. They've done it every year since then, but thankfully today's festival doesn't have apparent connotations of starvation or disease.

I really liked the movement in this shot and the contrast between this guy's modern glasses and traditional clothing. Many of these pictures have good depth-of-field.

The big pink and white thing in the background is a hollyhock float.

This little girl was adorable. She was getting kind of impatient waiting for the parade to catch up with her float. I don't blame her, it was around 90 degrees and incredibly humid.

There was also supposed to be some horseback archery going on at the parade's destination, but the humidity soon turned to rain and I wasn't that dedicated.