More from Kanda Matsuri.

I woke up to beautiful sunshine on Sunday morning, so I decided to go back for okawari from the Kanda Matsuri.  Sunday is the day the local neighborhood groups in the “low city” – over 100 of them in total – bring their own mikoshi to Kanda Myojin.  It’s quite something to see them climbing the hill from Akihabara, one after the other, to queue outside the Shrine like jets waiting to land at Narita.

As you can see, the turnout was pretty huge.  One by one, the mikoshi make their way up the Omotesando towards the Shrine, including groups of children with their own miniature shrines, and present their mikoshi to the Head Priest with much ceremony and clapping, then do a kind of lap around the precincts and the assembled revelers.  There was also an all-day taiko performance taking place.

I watched part of the proceedings from a terraced garden in the Shrine complex, above the main square, but there were O-suzumebachi up there!  I was a bit taken aback – one sting sends the average person to the hospital – but if the locals were even aware of the giant hornets, they gave no indication of it.  When in Rome – or Tokyo – I suppose.