🏮 Gion Matsuri Hanagasa Junko Kanko Sai

祇園祭-花傘巡行・還幸祭

Kyoto (Yasaka Shrine) · Every year on 24 July

Summer festival

313 days to go
Rooms around Kyoto fill up while the festival is on.

The Hanagasa Junko parade and the Kangyosai, held on July 24 during Gion Matsuri, are events that mark the climax of the summer festival centered on Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto. Gion Matsuri is said to have begun during the Jogan era (859–877), when a plague spread through the capital and mikoshi (portable shrines) were sent to Shinsen-en in an attempt to quell the disease. On July 17, the Shinkosai features three mikoshi that tour the shrine's parishioner districts; after a week of enshrinement, the Hanagasa Junko parade is held before the Kangyosai, in which the mikoshi return to the main shrine. The Hanagasa Junko is a procession rich in performing arts, in which umbrella halberds and Gion drums, along with Gion bayashi music, lion dances, and heron dances, set out from Yasaka Shrine and parade along Karasuma-dori and Shijo-dori. The Kangyosai begins in the evening of the same day, when three mikoshi — the Naka-mikoshi, Higashi-mikoshi, and Nishi-mikoshi — depart from the Yasaka Shrine Otabisho on Shijo Teramachi. The mikoshi carrying the deities go through a ceremony at Yasaka Shrine Matabisho, then return to Yasaka Shrine amid cheers.

Getting there

A short walk from Shijo Karasuma Station or Karasuma Oike Station on the subway, Karasuma Station or Kawaramachi Station on the Hankyu line, and Sanjo Station or Gion Shijo Station on the Keihan line.