Visit Nara

This festival is held at Tanzan Jinja Shrine annually on April 29 when the gardens are coming into bloom beneath the fresh green of spring. Shinto priests enter the shrine grounds in a traditional procession, wearing colorful garb from the 7th century. After a series of elaborate rituals, they loosen their decorum and get into a round of Kemari, a traditional courtly game resembling hacky-sack with an over-sized ball. It can be an amusing spectacle, as the priests resemble a wildly overdressed hacky-sack circle lurching around.