I got to Kyoto about lunchtime so I dumped my luggage at the station and had a leisurely lunch.

Then I jumped onto a hop on hop off city tour.  That was not a very good use of two hours.  I wouldn't recommend it if you ever find yourself here.  I didn't feel that I got much of an idea of the layout of the city and not a very good view of its attractions.  It would be better and cheaper to get yourself a one day bus/subway pass and with Google's help plot your way around the sights you'd like to see.

After that I retrieved my luggage and took a taxi to my hotel.  Although it wasn't far I was a trifle worn out.  

I had an online Japanese session in the evening and by the time that was over I was ready for bed.

Kyoto is obviously one of the best known of Japan's cities as the ancient capital and the home of the geisha tradition and so on but I had it at this spot on my itinerary because of a particular festival that is held at the Autumn equinox.  It's really quite a low key affair held by one small Shinto shrine.  One of the first things I did the following day was to make sure of how to get to the shrine.  The festival kicks off on the eve of the equinox so I had the day to fill and joined several hundred other tourists at a couple of spots.

This was going to be the starting point of a walk in the foothills of the hills that partially surround the city but the effort of getting there was enough.

Here's the crowd fighting their way through the shop-ridden climb to that pagoda.  There's a lot of tourist tat but some attractive stuff as well.

For instance I thought these fans were lovely.

In the evening I got to the Seimei Jinja in good time.  There was an illuminated stage set up and after a while some people appeared on it.  That pillar on the left of the picture proved a nuisance.  I got myself trapped in a position where it blocked my camera's view of events.  No matter, things went on.

There was praying and chanting.  We the audience were enjoined to bow our heads in prayer too, which we dutifully did, straining our eyes to get them looking up as you do when getting your eyes tested.

Then this girl performed.  She didn't exactly dance.  She processed around the stage accompanied by drums and a flute.  There was a cauldron of water in an area between the stage and the audience that had had a gas burner heating it up for some time.  That was switched off and the girl came down to it, sprinkled stuff into it, stirred it about, plunged two bunches of leaves into the water, raised them up and shook them about.

That was pretty much the culmination of the performance element of the ceremony.  After that they laid out about a dozen seats on the stage and people queued up, a group was admitted and the people were seated.  They were sort of blessed I guess and prayed over then were replaced by another group.  Rather like queuing up to take communion.

That was phase one.  I'm going to leave phase two for the moment.