Answer: Part of the ritual procession at Kiyomizu Temple (my favorite temple in all of Japan!) involved in the annual 3-day Seiryu-e Festival. Today was the first day of the festival and I biked over there from Doshisha to check it out. Right as I arrived with my two friends at the ticket gate, the sound of conch shell horns wavered through the air. This was not my first visit to Kiyomizu temple, but the first time I saw any sort of ceremony there. The procession began with conch blowers parading through the temple grounds followed by these women donning masks porting bowls of sacred water and flicking it about the temple and into the crowds with these long wands. Monks with wooden clappers followed behind them with spear-bearing soldiers interspersed between them. The rhythm of the clapping wooden block, sounding of the conch horns, and chinking of the soldiers' spears on the ground almost created the effect of a choral procession traversing through the temples' gates and halls. Finally, the festival culminated with the emergence and passage of a large very frighteningly realistically rendered dragon! Definitely a traditional Chinese dragon and judging from all the water rituals probably associated with the sea in some way. It was pretty cool and needless to say well worth the 45 minute beautiful bike ride along the Kamogawa River.
The Dragon going up the stairs at the entrance to Kiyomizu Temple
So cool...
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