Colorful (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

The two photographs were taken on my visit to Japan last year. Though it may not be readily apparent when viewing these images, the colorful items that are the focus of both of them are pretty large and estimated to weigh around one ton each. These facts nothwithstanding, these towering objects actually were constructed to be portable after a fashion; and to be carried for fairly significant distances by groups of men for a few days each year.

More specifically, these aesthetically as well as physically impressive constructions are wooden portable shrines which frenzied groups of male believers will carry while racing through the streets of Fukuoka during its Hakata Gion Yamakasa -- a major Shinto festival that takes place in mid-July and whose participants and onlookers number in their tens, if not hundreds, of thousands.

For much of the year though, these carved creations are to be found -- mounted in place and behind some protective mesh that, presumably, helps keeps birds and such from pecking at them, along with small red wooden fences imbued with, I imagine, symbolic meanings -- in the largely peaceful environs of the Kushida Shrine.

A religious establishment which lies in Fukuoka's bustling Hakata district in a location just off the traditional -- and, if truth be told, somewhat out-of-fashion as well as old-fashioned -- feeling Kawabata-dori shopping arcade plus mere minutes away from the busy plus modern leisure destination called Canal City, that which traces its establishment back to 757 CE makes for quite a study in contrast with the commercial portions that also are located in the heart of that which has claims to being Japan's oldest city.

On a personal note: I'd highly recommend that visitors to Japan who seek to delve beyond the surface of its culture not leave the country without having spent some time inside of a Shinto shrine. And if you're wondering: No, I'm not a particularly religious person by any means; however, my experiences in more than one part of the world often get me sensing plus thinking that it's in many religious establishments where the heart and soul of places and nations are most likely to be felt and encountered.