Aoi Matsuri

The Aoi Matsuri (which means Blue Festival) is the quietest and calmest festival of the many festivals there are in Japan. It involves young people (especially ones of high-class and good taste!) dressing up in very traditional clothing and make-up. The color blue is generally associated with youth over here, and also coming of age, and spring as a season is very much associated with new beginnings. Blue=Youth=Coming of Age=Spring. They, along with some older people, walk in a parade like fashion very very slowly, apparently around the city of Kyoto. We all caught the festivities at the source, since they start at the Imperial Palace, which is across the street from my university. The point of this festival is to display one of the things one of the gods will be living in for this year. This is it:

There's also an ambulance back there, but I don't think that serves any traditional or symbolic purpose. Unless the tradition is needing to be saved, which doesn't require an ambulance if you ask a missionary, but requires god, which is also present in this picture. The spiritually complicated Japan strikes again.