On festivals

I spent most of today catching up on my reading for class and the like, but this evening my host mother took me to Seimei Shrine to see a festival held to honour the autumnal equinox. It really was quite lovely, with a seemingly perfect merging of modern and ancient elements. Outside the temple itself there were stands such as you would expect at any fair: shooting and ring-toss games, stands selling food and candy (takoyaki and candied grapes in this case) and a goldfish catching game that has been a staple of Japanese festivals for a long while, I believe. Inside the torii arch there were displays of the portable shrines that will be paraded around tomorrow morning, surrounded by Omiyage including massive amounts of sake. On the other side there was a shrine shamaness dancing with her bells in front of a small altar accompanied by traditional instruments, and then a big display of lanterns. At the very back of the grounds was the actual house of the shrine god, in front of which people were praying. It was really all very beautiful, and if I had been at home I would have been tempted to get Norbert (my sister’s goldfish, for those of you out of the loop) a friend. It had been horribly hot all day, but since the festival was at night it wasn’t all that bad, though still a little warmer than I would have liked.
-There is such thing as bacon and egg taiyaki (a fish-shaped griddle-cake), in addition to the traditional red bean.
-Hagi appears to be the traditional snack for this time of year, since I’ve had it about 3 times in the last two days. It’s basically sweet sticky rice covered in red bean paste.
-Anything containing egg or egg-shaped is appropriate for the season, as this is the time for moon-viewing and eggs suggest the moon. The most interesting manifestation of this is the ‘moon-viewing burger’ that McDonald’s is currently offering here. Basically it appears to be a burger with one of their molded scrambled-egg things on it.
-On that subject, rabbits are also in season, as they (according to Japanese folklore) pound sweet glutinous rice cakes on the moon. This is also how Tsukino Usagi gets her name (Sailor Moon, anyone?)