The festival once in seventh year (Zenkoji temple / 善光寺 "Gokaicho / 御開帳" ) vol. 1

Zenkoji temple is having a festival this year.
As it is held only once in every seventh year, there are several events during this period.

The main event is to show hidden Buddhist statue. You only can see this statue at "Gokaicho".

The festival had started at April 5th, and ends at May 31st.

Today, I will introduce what I saw before I reached Zenkoji temple.

This is Nio's foot. Nio is the guardian of the temple.

I was surprised how his muscle is realistic, even felt like as if he starts to move if the people have done not good thing to the temple.

Nio stays at the gate of Zenkoji temple.

It is usual to see Nio at the gate of temple in Japan.

It was so crowded...

I think this flower is a kind of cherry blossom.  

This Buddhist statue is said that one of god in Buddhism transformed to comical looking, and took a animal, raccoon, so that human can come to temple more relaxed and easily.