京都 Kyoto : 祇園祭 Gion Festival

  When you travel or when you have holidays, how many days do you spend in one place. Most of you will stay three or four days in one city. You probably think that one week or let's say seven days to be more precise are enough time to discover it.
  In Kyoto I would argue that you need one year to say you've seen enough. There are hundreds of historical moments and building to visit such temples, shrines, imperial palaces, castles and so on. You can enjoy spectacular landscapes and views each season. Namely you can't miss a beautiful cherry blossoms and vivid autumn leaves. In Kyoto, there are three big festivals and each festival has different styles of parades and costumes. Gion festival is one of them which is held in July. A number of festive events take place throughout one month. The biggest attraction of this festival is "Yamahoko-junko", 32 floats with gorgeous decorations. The materials used to construct their flamework is wood and tied and fixed by straw ropes with no use of nails. Each district spends a few days to build their float. Fortunately, I encountered this event between July 10 to July 12. The float is approximately 25 meters tall.