Osaka and Kyoto
The Osaka Toka Ebisu Festival and the Sanjusangendo Archery Contest
Our last days in Japan were rather subdued, which isn’t a big surprise since we had just had the excitement of taking engagement photos in kimonos; however, we were able to catch the Toka Ebisu Festival between January 9 and 11.
The Toka Ebisu Festival takes place annually at Imamiya Ebisu Shrine in Osaka. There, festival-goers wave a ceremonial bamboo branch and pray for a year of financial success and prosperity.
We ended up walking through the area a couple times, with the 10th of January being the busiest day. One of the interesting things about the festival is that young school-age girls can apply to help in the festivities by giving out and decorating ornamental bamboo branches with lucky charms. There are only 50 spots available for over 3,000 applicants, which makes it more difficult to get than some of the best universities.
Outside the temple there is a sprawling market for both good luck charms and food. We ended up walking the entire street market in search of good okonomiyaki, karaage, and hashimaki.
A few days later on January 13, we went back to Kyoto to see the Sanjusangendo Archery Contest. Sanjusangendo Temple is well-regarded for its 1001 statues of Kannon, the goddess of mercy. It is Japan’s longest wooden structure, at 120m. The temple was founded in 1164 and rebuilt a century later after the original structure was destroyed in a fire.
On the 13th, seasoned archers and new 20-year-old competitors all gathered to celebrate and compete in the Sanjusangendo Archery Contest. The main attraction is seeing women in colourful kimonos celebrate their coming-of-age by competing to hit targets standing 60 meters away.
Unfortunately I forgot to set a morning alarm, thinking that I would wake up early, and then I got us on the local train instead of the express. By the time we arrived it was almost over and to compound my mistake, we ended up walking through the temple instead of around the side — delaying us a little more. By the time we arrived at the competition, the last shots were being made.
To our surprise, there is hardly any place to view the competition. We thought there would be a long gallery to watch from; instead, we had to stand behind a fence among trees. Unless you were in the front, which we weren’t, you couldn’t see much of anything. We decided to stick around for the awards ceremony and saw one girl receive two bags full of prizes and a beautiful new bow.
I was quite disappointed that we missed the archery competition, so we’ll have to make an effort to come back again. This shouldn’t be too difficult as we’ve been to Kyoto three times now and it still has the most pins on our map of attractions we’d like to see.
