Bicycle: 33 km
Carrying o-Mikoshi: 6.8 km
Average Speed: 12.6 km/h
Total Ascent: 500 m
Weather: some clouds, some sun, warm, but bearable, 23 C
Originally my plan was to cycle to Miho museum (a fabulous place where I went with the Brompton a few years ago), but I got a late start and wasn’t feeling full of energy, but still I got started. At the basis of the climb up over the hills from Yamashina to Otsu, I saw a road advise that the road would be closed between 13:00 and 14:00 o’clock due to a matsuri in the village below. So I decided to have a look. What I didn’t expect that I’d be enlisted to be a carrier of the smaller women o-mikoshi. But hey, I hadn’t any specific plan for the day, so carrying an o-mikoshi through the streets of Nagara was a good plan.
… and was a lot of fun. I had wanted to participate in a matsuri a few years ago in Higashi Kitazawa (where I was living) after seeing it as a spectator, but the weekend it was scheduled we were away, so never got round doing it. But will look into it again, maybe this year!
On the way we stopped a few times, got food and drinks from the neighbours, rested a bit and then went on our way with the o-mikoshi.
After about 2.5 hours we were back at the shrine, had a last religious ceremony and then a group pictures with all participants and the mikoshi’s in the background.
There were 3 mikoshi’s in total: The main, big one; a smaller one for the women (we were only 7, 6 carrying it, and one carrying the feet to put the mikoshi to rest), and another small one for the children.
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