Zenjoji Light festival

Each year a light festival is held at Zenkoji temple to celebrate the anniversary of the winter Olympics held in Nagano. Although I see the temple almost every day I never tire of it. It looks so beautiful at lunch times with the sun over it, after school at sunset and at night. But it really was worth seeing at the light festival. Different parts of the temple grounds were lit in different colours and strobe lights shone across the sky. What is usually an ancient wood construction came to life with greens, reds and blues dowsed over it.

The lights were turned on at 6pm with a gasp from the crowd. With lots of posing and pictures taken, everyone made there way through the temple grounds and headed either for a traditional Buddhist meal at a restaurant, mochi freshly made in the street or street vans selling grilled tofu. Ikuko and I watched the mochi being made and luckily were the first 100 in line so we got a free serving! Mochi is a Japanese sweet made from pulped rice and dusted with a flavour. It is supposed to be healthy and is fat free - bonus!