Archery Festival

Thanks to the blandishments of the magnificent Kikuko, we watched a Shinto spring arrow ceremony in Nagoya. Priests from a small neighbourhood launched arrows at a gilt target; the better their aim, the better the year will be. The priests' faces were a picture of intense concentration as the whole community chanted for their aim to be true. They only scored 2 out of 12 hits on the gold centre, but nobody seemed too crestfallen. Afterwards, grannies crawled over each other (and us) to receive fresh mochi handed out by the archer priests. That night at home, we grilled the mochi and tasted the supposedly approaching spring while shivering under the kotatsu.