To get there, you have to change your train in the mid-way. First, if you are at JR Kyoto Station, then you should take a fifteen minutes’ ride to get to the Demachi-Yanagi Station. Then get on the Eizan Dentetsu Kurama Line. After thirty minutes, you should get off the train at Kurama Station. Kurama Station is quite near the Yuki-jinja Shrine where this great festival will take place. And if you get there at the exact time of the year, say October 22nd, and can catch it at Kurama-Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture. You would never miss it.
During that night two hundred and fifty torches will be lit up, and the night is as bright as the day. This festival is held to welcome in the deity in Kurama at Yuki-jinja Shrine. Six o’clock is the exact time that all watch fires named kagaribi will be lit up in front of the house. And people in Japan will have the lighted pine torches in their hands, and marching along the streets. They will shout in rhythm, and waiting for the festival. This festival is one of the biggest three festival in Jpan, together with it are Ushi Matsuri festival and Yasurai Matsuri festival.
There will be two hundred and fifty torches and all of them are three meters tall. The adults will hold the torches more than 80 kg each. And the children will have the small ones following them. To worship the Yuki Shrine, people will gather in front of the Kurama-dera Temple at eight o’clock in the evening. Then two portable shrines will be carried on the shoulder of the youth and going through the streets. This part of the festival is the most attractive part. And the festival wouldn’t finish until midnight.
The Yuki-jinja Shrine is famous for two things, one is the structures. The structure of the shrine represents the building of the Azuchi-Momoyama Period which is five hundred years ago. And the other is a pine tree in front of the shrine which has a history of eight hundred years. As for the location of the shrine, you could never find a better place than her to enjoy the beauty of cherry blossoms in early April and the autumnal tints in early November.
