Takigi Noh at Heian-jingû

I tend to be either indifferent to Heian-jingû or to find it vaguely disturbing: it's another of the grand Meiji-era shrines built by a government intent on promulgating a very narrow, and narrow-minded, ideology, the Kyoto cousin to Yasukuni in Tokyo, enshrining "Japanese culture" rather than the war dead. That said, the gardens (a national treasure) are lovely, and last Friday they were free to the public. ( Takigi noh, with photos )

I apologize for the lack of captions & alt-text; I need to mess around with Picasa some more, but not tonight. More photos later!