Monday saw the Aoi Matsuri festival here in Kyoto.

“Aoi Matsuri” is 葵祭 — Aoi means “hollyhock” (a kind of flower), and matsuri means both “source of great traffic congestion” and “festival”.

This particular festival, held on May 15^th ever year, dates back about 1,000 years, making it the oldest festival still held today. It's a “festival”, though, only in the sense of the hoopla surrounding it is festive — it's really more of an “event”.

People dressed in period costumes leave the imperial palace and walk a path to some shrines a few kilometers away. People line the path to see the costumes and such.

For example, this gentleman is a security guard:

These people are, uh, carrying something.

Looking at this satellite map of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, it's centered on the main processionway within the palace grounds. They walk south, out onto the street, following the street east and then north up the right side of the palace grounds, then on north somewhere to some shrines

As each small group walks down the initial wide processionway, they stop in front of big grandstands set up, and some old guy talks about them a bit. It's very slow. The acoustics aren't great, nor, apparently, is my Japanese, so the only thing I understood the whole time was the bit about the security guards (shown above). Still, it was a pleasant day and enjoyable just to watch them and the hubbub for a while.

This kid had a great view of the proceedings:

There were all kinds of different costumes, and various “things” of unknown (to me) function. As one example, here's something that looks like a big umbrella, although I doubt that's what it actually is:

This cart, obviously for someone very important (the emperor?):

The cart was drawn by a dozen men. They're out of the picture to the left, but you can see some more — I like this view of it because of the group of yellow-hat-wearing preschoolers watching on the right, which I thought were cute. Although you can't see the cart-pulling men, you can see a few of the buzzing important-looking attendants (priests?) following (one of whom is holding a walkie-talkie, which the Japanese apparently had working at the time).

The flowers surrounding the cart, I was told, are the hollyhock. At the time, I assumed they were the violet-colored ones hanging around the edge, but now I wonder if they're the yellow ones. Not that it really matters — I don't know much about flowers (except that they're pretty, which is sufficient for me).

Here's a closeup:

On my way home, I passed them walking north on Kawaramachi Street (the right side of the palace grounds). I thought it was nicer to see them within the grounds, rather than on the street amongst the traffic. But the juxtaposition of modern and ancient can be interesting as well. Here's a picture Nils took while they passed on a street further on north.