As I was digging through some photos I took in Kyoto I came upon this rather lovely one and determined to find out what the lantern meant. かがり火 is simple enough. Kagaribi means bonfire. 祇園 is Gion (the famous Gion known for teahouses and geisha). No surprises there as I took this picture in 円山 (maruyama) park which is either in or right next to Gion. So I figured this must be in reference to some bonfire festival that would shortly be taking place in the park. Right?

Wrong. A quick google search turned up this site, meaning that this decorative lantern is nothing more than an advertisement for a nearby restaurant which specializes in its tofu dishes.

Oh well. It’s more attractive than the billboards plastered along the sides of U.S. highways.

Related posts:

1. Maiko? I’m not sure if these were real Maiko or just a couple of young ladies pretending to be such. You can tell they are not Geisha (Geiko since we...
2. Japanese lanterns If today’s picture looks a little familiar it is because a portion of it sometimes appears as the banner across the top of this blog. To the foreign eye...
3. The Buddha rests See yesterday’s entry for the location of this resting, marble Buddha. ...
4. 龍池山大雲院　Ryuchizandaiunin I stumbled on this place quite by accident while walking from Maruyama Koen (円山公園) into the Gion District in Kyoto. This shrine is actually quite close to the Gion...
5. Real Maiko In my last entry on the topic I noted that I didn’t know if all of the Maiko dashing about Kyoto were real or not. In the afternoon there...

Posted on June 28th, 2009 under Japan • Tags: cherry blossoms, kyoto, sakura, signs. • RSS 2.0 feed • You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed