Kyoto Toh Shiya

Every Sunday closest to January 15th they have an archery contest on the temple grounds next to the Sanjusangen-do building. In the old times archers were shooting on targets 120m away from them, nowadays the distance is shortened a bit to 60m, which is still very very very far away and needs a lot of skills (or should i say “luck” ?) to hit it with those old wooden traditional Japanese style long bows.

There will be over 2,000 archers competing in this contest and everybody will get a chance to shoot at least 2 arrows(I think you will get another round if you hit at least one). The festival mostly celebrates 20 year olds (coming into age) from all over Japan … but at later hours professional archers that are older will also start to compete. The contest begins from 9am in the morning and runs till 4pm in the afternoon. There are a lot of young girls nicely dressed in kimonos (or yukatas) taking part of it. I was watching between 12pm and 2pm and only saw girls shooting … but there were also a lot of young men dressed in formal samurai hakama cloths waiting their turn.

 

Transport: Close to Hakubutsukan Sanjusangendo-mae bus stop by City Bus No. 206 or No. 208 from Kyoto Station. Or, 7 minutes’ walk from Keihan Railways’ Shichijo Station. Parking is very limited, but if you are lucky (like i was) then you will find some on the shrine-grounds.

Website: Japan National Tourism organization has some info about it in English and the official Sanjusangen-do website (in Japanese) should show you the exact date as it is changing every year.