This float’s neighborhood has had ties to the tea ceremony since those times, and for 2000 yen you can refresh yourself from the festival swelter with mattcha tea (a.k.a. “Japanese espresso”) and tea sweet. Meanwhile you can enjoy watching tea ceremony, view some of the float’s treasures (in an air conditioned setting) and receive a chrysanthemum-shaped ceramic dish as a memento. Urasenke tea masters and their students come from all around Kyoto to help prepare and serve the tea.
Kikusui Boko was reduced to ashes in the great fire of 1864, which devastated many of the festival. It was rebuilt in 1953, and we can imagine the hopefulness it must have inspired during Japan’s impoverished post-war era.
Buy my book, “Gion Festival: Exploring Its Mysteries,” to learn more about the spectacular Gion Festival than you can anywhere else. Some former directors of Gion Matsuri float associations have told me they believe it’s better than any books available on the Gion Matsuri in Japanese. I’m pleased to gift you a free excerpt here.
Interested in sharing this content? Check out the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License for guidelines on how. This is a cool way to grow a culture of generosity. In Buddhism, generosity is one of the foundational practices of spiritual enlightenment. So it’s worth a try.
