Fox Bride

In mid-March we made a night-time visit to the Southern Higashiyama neighborhood of Kyoto for their annual illuminations festival. The streets are lined with lanterns, and many of the temples have their own special light shows and effects.

A key part of the festival involves a mysterious 'fox bride.' This masked figure processes through the narrow alleyways with an entourage of attendants and musicians, re-enacting an old Japanese folk tale called kitsune no yomeiri. We caught our first glimpse of the fox bride in the grounds of one of the temples. We didn't get a good view of the bride, but we did see the fox-emblazoned robes of her attendants:

Later in the evening, we again heard the faint sounds of percussion that indicated that the fox bride was nearby. This time she was being transported in a special rickshaw: