Nara Obon Festival

Obon, as I have said before is a religious holiday in August where the dead come back to visit and you pay respect to your ancestors. This ceremony in August is where the spirits are being sent back to wherever they came from because Obon is over. We were really lucky to be in Nara at this time to see this festival. Kyoto has a similar festival, but I decided to attend the Nara one instead because there would be less crowds.

There were actually two things going on that night. The lady on the left is holding a lantern, which was going on at a shrine not to far away. Many people were purchasing lanterns and then going over to the shrine. The other lady is holding a fan with the symbol, "dai" on it. This is the symbol that you will see later is burnt into the mountain.

Below you can see a priest. All these monks were chanting and it was really cool. There was a fire burning with lots of smoke. The spirits are thought to rise up in the smoke, and that's how they depart this world. The air smelled really nice because of all the incense. We got there kinda early and really weren't sure what was taking place when. The English information was nil, so... We waited for a really long time (I just wanted to see the mountain set on fire, the chanting was cool, but after an hour or so it got old cause I didn't know what they were saying!), and then were about to leave. I told Markian that we should wait until 8:00 PM cause for some reason that seems to be the time when everything happens in Japan. Seriously...

So FINALLY, at 8 PM on the dot the mountain lit up. It was really cool, but as you see it was so dark and I didn't have anything to stabilize my shot, so my pictures kinda suck, but you get the general idea. Also, there were so many people, and I couldn't get a shot without someone's head in it! It was really cool, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to see it! I won't be back to this part of the country in August again if I can help it because the heat was so unbearable!

Below you can watch a video of the monks chanting. Make sure to have you volume on!