Tonight we went to see the Daimonji Okuribi Festival (Farewell Fire Festival), which is a traditional o-bon event in Kyoto. Five fires, shaped as kanji characters and symbols, are set on five mountainsides. They burn from east to west in the shape of the characters, “dai”, “myo”, “ho”, a boat, and a torii gate. The event cannot be seen from the streets because of the number of high-rise buildings so we watched the fires burn from a roof of a nearby hotel.