Dragons appear all throughout Kyoto’s ancient Gion Matsuri

When you think about the Gion Matsuri, these floats (at left) are probably what you think about. They are probably the most famous feature of the Gion Matsuri, the yamaboko floats, and this is the procession on July 17th. It’s quite a spectacular feature of the festival.

But if you spend a lot of time—or anytime at all—at the Gion Matsuri, you notice that there are a lot of dragons all around the Gion Matsuri. This (see images below, from left) is a textile that adorns a float. Here’s a blue dragon; there’s a lot of dragon metal work, for example; and another blue dragon textile that adorns the Ennogyoja Yama float.